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mTHE 



LRAirCONQrEST OF EGYPT 

AND THE 

LAST THIRTY YEARS OF THE 

ROMAN DOMINION 



BY 

/ 

ALFRED J. BUTLER, D.Litt., F.S.A. 

FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE 
AUTHOR OF ' THE ANCIENT COPTIC CHURCHES OF EGYPT,' ETC. 



OXFORD 

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 

1902 




J>arbuJUr^t.SAan/orrf Lta. 



HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 

LONDON, EDINBURGH 

NEW YORK 



^ 



^J 






PREFACE 

For this book, so far as its purpose is concerned, 
perhaps no apology is needed. It aims at con- 
structing a history, at once broad and detailed, of 
— the Saracen conquest of Egypt. No such history 
has yet been written, although scattered essays on 
the subject may be found from Gibbon onwards — 
brief sketches or chapters in some wider treatise 
upon the Roman or the Arab empire. Indeed the 
fact that no serious and minute study upon the 
conquest exists in any language is not a little 
remarkable : but it has been mainly due to two 
causes — the scantiness of the material accessible to 
ordinary students, and the total want of agreement 
among the authorities, familiar or unfamiliar, eastern 
or western. 

The subject consequently has been wrapped in 
profound obscurity; to enter upon it was to enter 
a gloomy labyrinth of contradictions. This may 
seem exaggerated language : but it is no more than 
the truth, and it is borne out by the opinion of a 
very well-known writer, Mr. E. W. Brooks, who says : 
' There is scarcely any important event in history of 
which the accounts are so vague and so discrepant 
as the capture of Alexandria. The whole history of 
the irruption of the Saracens into the [Roman] 
empire is indeed dark and obscure : but of all the 
events of this dark period the conquest of Egypt is 
the darkest ^! To render this obscurity in some 

^ Byzantinische Zeitschrifiy 1895, p. 435. 



iv Preface 

degree luminous, to bring together the results of 
recent Inquiry, turning to use the mass of fresh 
material now available, to test the oriental authorities 
one against another and to set them in comparison 
with other groups of authorities, and so by the light 
of research and criticism to place the study of this 
period on a scientific basis — that at least is the 
design with which this work has been undertaken. 
How far the achievement falls short of the design 
I am fully conscious. In some cases the method 
failed : it was, in the words of Maeterlinck, 
*like turning a magnifying glass on silence and 
darkness.' In other cases failure has been due to 
my own shortcomings, such as the sllghtness of my 
acquaintance with Arabic, and the difficulty of 
carrying on in isolated fragments of leisure a work 
demanding concentration of mind and close and 
continuous study. Nevertheless the result will, it is 
hoped, provoke further inquiry. Certainly I have 
been forced to disagree with nearly all the received 
conclusions upon the subject of the conquest. Even 
in the most recent historians it will be found that 
the outline of the story is something as follows: 
that before the actual invasion of Egypt the country 
was laid under tribute to the Arabs by Cyrus for 
three or more years ; that the refusal of the tribute 
by Manuel occasioned the invasion ; that the 
Mukaukas, who was a Copt, sided with the Arabs ; 
that the Copts generally hailed them as deliverers 
and rendered them every assistance; and that 
Alexandria after a long siege, full of romantic epi- 
sodes, was captured by storm. Such is the received 
account. It may seem presumptuous to say that it 
is untrue from beginning to end, but to me no other 



Preface v 

conclusion is possible. Yet every one of these 
statements, when its foundation is discovered, is 
seen to rest on a truth or a half-truth ; and nothing 
is more interesting than to trace the manner in 
which facts have been misplaced or misunderstood, 
and so used in the construction of false history or 
legend. 

Fault may perhaps be found with the fullness of 
the notes in places. The answer is that in dealing 
with a vast mass of controversial and contradictory 
matter I have felt bound to give both my authorities 
and my reasons at more length than would have 
been requisite in dealing with simpler materials. So 
too of the Appendices, which are very copious. But 
it was absolutely necessary to construct for oneself 
the whole framework both of the history and of the 
chronology. It was impossible, for example, to 
write about the conquest until one had determined 
who the Mukaukas was, or until one had worked out 
the scheme of chronology. It would not have done 
merely to state what are often quite novel con- 
clusions without setting out the data on which they 
are founded ; and those data are exceedingly com- 
plex, whether the question be the personality of Al 
Mukaukas, or the chronology of the Persian or of 
the Arab conquest. 

In regard to the scope of the work, it seemed that 
the mere Invasion of Egypt by the Arabs should 
not be treated as an isolated event, that its historic 
significance could only be rightly understood in rela- 
tion to those great movements which brought the 
ancient empires of Rome and Persia into collision 
with the rising empire of Arabia. In some such way 
alone could the conquest be shown in its true per- 



vi Preface 

pective. The reign of Heraclius offers an obvious 
starting-point, and happens to begin with some very 
vivid but almost unknown pictures from scenes in 
Egypt. It covers too the downfall of Persia, the 
active life of Mohammed, the loss of Jerusalem and 
Syria to the Caesars, and the Persian conquest of 
Egypt by Chosroes ; and it illustrates the political 
and religious causes which were at work preparing 
the way for the sword of Isldm and the Kurdn. At 
the same time the action of events passing outside 
the borders of Egypt has for the most part been 
traced but lightly and kept subordinate to the main 
purpose of the book. 

The sources and authorities for the history of the 
period chosen require some discussion. Of the short 
notices in western writers of more modern date 
Ockley's romantic History of the Saracens is almost 
as well known as Gibbon's Roman Empire. Sharpens 
Egypt under the Romans is not of much value. 
More recent information is given in Prof. Bury's 
edition of Gibbon, and the same writers Later 
Roman Empire ; in Mr. Milne's Egypt U7ider the 
Romans', and in Prof. S. Lane- Poole's Egypt in the 
Middle Ages and his Cairo in the 'Mediaeval Towns' 
Series. Weil's Geschichte der Chalifen is valuable, even 
indispensable, but somewhat out of date. Von Ranke's 
Weltgeschichte contains a passage on the conquest and 
an essay on Amru in Aegypten, which rehearse the 
conventional story. Indeed Von Ranke's opinion may 
be summed up in his own words : ' The conquest of 
Egypt resulted from the desertion of a treacherous 
ruler of the Copts to the Arab standard'^ — 
an opinion which can no longer hold the field. Of 
^ Vol. V. pt. i. p. 143 ; the Essay id., pt. ii. pp. 268 seq. 



Preface vii 

the larger French histories one must mention de 
Saint-Martin's edition of Le Beau's Histoire du Bas 
Empire, to which later writers add little or nothing. 
Thus the passage in Sedillot's Histoire Gdndrale 
des Arabes upon the conquest contains scarcely one 
accurate sentence. Even C. Diehl can write in his 
admirable Afrique Byzantine, * Les Coptes embras- 
serent presque sans resister le parti de I'envahisseur 
et assurerent par leur defection la victoire des 
Musulmans' (p. 553)- But Renaudot's Historia 
Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum is a work of pro- 
found scholarship and research, and its importance is 
undiminished, as far as it goes. The learned works 
of Quatremere, who was remarkable alike for the 
range of his knowledge and the acumen of his judge- 
ments, have lost little of their value for students of 
Egyptian history. Yet even if western accounts 
were less defective, a fresh inquiry of this kind must 
be based on the original authorities. Of these the 
Greek writers are very disappointing. Theophanes, 
who wrote in 813, has wholly misunderstood the 
Arab conquest. His brief and hurried summary 
confuses the first and second capture of Alexandria — 
though he mentions neither — invents a treaty with 
the Arabs previous to the invasion, and is void of all 
perspective. He is thus responsible for a good deal 
of false history. Nicephorus is somewhat better, but 
unfortunately there is a blank in his text from 641 
to 668 : what remains is a ' mere list of defeated 
generals.' Both writers are fragmentary : they 
disagree with each other : and in both the chronology 
is impossible. John Mosckus, as well as the Patriarchs 
of Jerusalem, Zacharias and Sopkronitts, are religious 
writers of the late sixth or early seventh century, 



viii Preface 

from whose works some incidental references to 
events preceding the conquest may be gathered. 
Leontms of Neapolis in Cyprus has left an interesting 
biography of John the Almoner, Patriarch of Alex- 
andria, which is useful for the Persian conquest and 
has been admirably edited by Gelzer. The Ckronico7i 
Paschale or Alexandrinum was probably written in 
the early seventh century in Egypt, but does not go 
down to the conquest ; while the Latin Chro7iico7i 
Orientale of Echellensis is dated 1238 a. d. 

The Armenian authorities seem almost useless for 
the conquest of Egypt, though they deal in great 
detail with the wars of the Roman Empire against 
Persia, and the loss of Syria. The bishop Sebeos 
wrote a history, which has appeared in Russian, and 
which Mr. Conybeare has edited with an English 
translation, but not yet published : it throws a good 
deal of light on this period, but little or none on 
Egypt. Michael the Syrian, edited by Langlois, 
seems to follow Theophanes : Chabot's far better 
edition is not yet complete. The Syrian Elijah of 
Nisibis exists in MS. in the British Museum, but 
a portion relating to the Arab conquest has been 
published by Bathgen. 

Coming now to Egyptian writers, one must place 
first and foremost yoh7i of Nikiou, a Coptic bishop 
who wrote in Egypt towards the end of the seventh 
century, and was born probably about the time of 
the conquest. His history of the world was originally 
written partly in Coptic and partly in Greek, but it 
seems to have been translated into Arabic at a very 
early date. On this Arabic was founded the only 
surviving version of John's Chronicle, which is in 
Ethiopic, and which Zotenberg has translated and 



Preface ix 

edited. WTiere the text is clear and uncornipted, it 
is of extreme value : but most unhappily It Is almost 
a complete blank from the accession of Heraclius to 
the arrival of the Arabs before Babylon : thus the 
story of the Persian conquest and the recover)- of 
Eg)^pt has dropped out, and the history of the later 
stages of the Arab conquest is in such a tumbled 
and topsy-turvy state that the true order and 
meaning of the narrative are almost past the power 
of criticism to reconstitute. Yet certain cardinal 
facts are established which, though at variance with 
later Arab tradition, must be regarded as of absolutely 
unimpeachable authority, and as furnishing a firm 
and sure basis for the study of this epoch. Indeed 
it is the acquisition of John's MS. by the British 
Abyssinian expedition which has made it possible to 
write a histor)^ of the Arab conquest of Eg}^pt. It 
is much to be hoped that a Coptic or Arabic version 
of John of Nikiou, anterior to the Ethlopic, may one 
day be discovered \ Dr. Schafer has already found 
in the Berlin IMuseum a Sa'idic frao^ment of six 
leaves showing, as Mr. Crum notes, a remarkably 
close relation to John's Chronicle. Zotenberg's 
edition is defective in some points of translation and 
in the calculation of dates ; but scholars are awaiting 
with much Interest the appearance of Dr. Charles' 
Eno^lish translation. 

o 

^ i\I. Am^lineau in his Vie du Pairiarche Copte Isaac (p. xxiv. n.) 
professes to know of an Arabic MS. of John's Chronicle. In reply 
to my inquiry asking where this precious document is to be found, 
he will only say that it is ' au fond d'une province de I'Egypte ' — 
a remark which does not illuminate the mystery. On p. xxvi of 
the same work is a critique strangely depreciating both John and 
his histor}^ : a critique Ynih which I disagree as decidedly as 
I disagree with M. Am^lineau's chronology of this period. 



viii Preface 

from whose works some incidental references to 
events preceding the conquest may be gathered. 
Leonthis of Neapolis in Cyprus has left an interesting 
biography of John the Almoner, Patriarch of Alex- 
andria, which is useful for the Persian conquest and 
has been admirably edited by Gelzer. The Chronicon 
Paschale or Alexandrimtm was probably written in 
the early seventh century in Egypt, but does not go 
down to the conquest; while the Latin Chronicon 
Orientate of Echellensis is dated 1238 a. d. 

The Armenian authorities seem almost useless for 
the conquest of Egypt, though they deal in great 
detail with the wars of the Roman Empire against 
Persia, and the loss of Syria. The bishop Sebeos 
wrote a history, which has appeared in Russian, and 
which Mr. Conybeare has edited with an English 
translation, but not yet published : it throws a good 
deal of light on this period, but little or none on 
Egypt. Michaet the Syrian, edited by Langlois, 
seems to follow Theophanes : Chabot's far better 
edition is not yet complete. The Syrian Elijah of 
Nisibis exists in MS. in the British Museum, but 
a portion relating to the Arab conquest has been 
published by Bathgen. 

Coming now to Egyptian writers, one must place 
first and foremost John of Nikiou, a Coptic bishop 
who wrote in Egypt towards the end of the seventh 
century, and was born probably about the time of 
the conquest. His history of the world was originally 
written partly in Coptic and partly in Greek, but it 
seems to have been translated into Arabic at a very 
early date. On this Arabic was founded the only 
surviving version of John's Chronicle, which is in 
Ethiopic, and which Zotenberg has translated and 



Preface ix 

edited. Where the text is clear and uncorrupted, it 
is of extreme value : but most unhappily it is almost 
a complete blank from the accession of Heraclius to 
the arrival of the Arabs before Babylon : thus the 
story of the Persian conquest and the recovery of 
Egypt has dropped out, and the history of the later 
stages of the Arab conquest is in such a tumbled 
and topsy-turvy state that the true order and 
meaning of the narrative are almost past the power 
of criticism to reconstitute. Yet certain cardinal 
facts are established which, though at variance with 
later Arab tradition, must be regarded as of absolutely 
unimpeachable authority, and as furnishing a firm 
and sure basis for the study of this epoch. Indeed 
it is the acquisition of John's MS. by the British 
Abyssinian expedition which has made it possible to 
write a history of the Arab conquest of Egypt. It 
is much to be hoped that a Coptic or Arabic version 
of John of Nikiou, anterior to the Ethiopic, may one 
day be discovered ^. Dr. S chafer has already found 
in the Berlin Museum a Sa*idic fragment of six 
leaves showing, as Mr. Crum notes, a remarkably 
close relation to John's Chronicle. Zotenberg's 
edition is defective in some points of translation and 
in the calculation of dates ; but scholars are awaiting 
with much interest the appearance of Dr. Charles' 
English translation. 

. ^ M. Amdlineau in his Vie du Patriarche Copte Isaac (p. xxiv. n.) 
professes to know of an Arabic MS. of John's Chronicle. In reply- 
to my inquiry asking where this precious document is to be found, 
he will only say that it is * au fond d'une province de I'figypte ' — ■ 
a remark which does not illuminate the mystery. On p. xxvi of 
the same work is a critique strangely depreciating both John and 
his history : a critique with which I disagree as decidedly as 
I disagree with M. Am^lineau's chronology of this period. 



X Preface 

Of early Coptic MSS. very few are known with 
any bearing on the subject. The Bodleian frag- 
ment of the Life of Benjamin has been edited by 
Amelineau {Fragments Copies pour servir a VHistoire 
de la Conquete de F^gypte in journal Asiatique for 
1888) : and the same scholar has published the Life 
of Samuel of Kalamun in Monuments pour servir 
a rHistoire de V^gypte Chrdtienne attx IV^-VIP 
Siecles, An Ethiopic version of this same Life of 
Samuel, Vida do Adda Samuel do Mosteiro do 
Kalamon, has been published by F. M. E. Pereira, 
who has also edited from the Ethiopic a Vida do 
Abba Daniel. To Amelineau also we owe the 
Life of Pisentios and the Life of the Patriarch Isaac 
— both seventh-century Coptic documents with 
passages of great interest : and the Arabic Life of 
Shenoudi, also edited by Amelineau, is certainly 
based on a Coptic original. But the historical 
value of these Coptic documents is not very great. 
The writers were set upon recording matters of 
Church interest — the more miraculous the better — 
and their minds were almost closed to the great 
movements of the world about them. It is useless 
lamenting that, where they might have told us so 
much, they furnish only a few scanty and incidental 
allusions to contemporary history. 

But the regret is all the keener because John of 
Nikiou and other writers of the seventh century 
are divided by a great gulf from the Arabic writers 
— a gulf of nearly two centuries. It is true that 
there is some hope of bridging the gulf when the 
immense mass of Fayum and other papyri comes to 
be examined. Those at present published by Drs. 
Grenfell and Hunt and by Mr. Crum are of little avail 



Preface xi 

for the conquest : but the Arabic papyri, which Prof. 
Karabacek is editing, will certainly throw light upon 
it, as is proved by his already published catalogue 
of samples shown at the Vienna Exhibition, in 
which letters occur from actors in the conquest 
named both by John of Nikiou and by Arab 
historians. 

Of the Arab historians one cannot pretend to give 
an exhaustive list, but a brief notice of the principal 
ones may be useful \ One of the earliest and the 
most esteemed of the Arab writers was A I Wakidt 
(747-823 A. D.), whose work is lost save for copious 
extracts and allusions which survive in other 
historians. Those works, such as Kitdb Futuh 
Misr, which bear his name, are wrongly attributed 
to him, but are often for convenience cited as his 
rather than clumsily ascribed to * Pseudo-Wakidaeus.' 

Al Balddhuri (806-92) was educated at Bagh- 
dad but frequented the court of various caliphs. 
He wrote circa Z(>Z the FutHh al Bulddn — a book 
of conquests arranged according to countries or 
provinces. If not quite the earliest or the fullest, 
he is certainly among the most valuable authorities : 
but he makes it clear that even in the ninth century 
there was great difference of opinion upon the 
details of the conquest of Egypt. His name is 
derived from balddhur or anacardium, an overdose of 

^ Further information may be found in Mr. E. W. Brooks' 
articles, (i) 0« the Chronology of the Conquest of Egypt hy the Saracens^ 
in Byzantinische Zeitschrift for 1895 ; (2) The Arabs in Asia Minor^ 
iiifournal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xviii, 1898 ; (3) Byzantines and 
Arabs in the time of the Early Abbasids^ in English Historical 
Review for Oct., 1900: see also Mr. Guest's article on the writers 
quoted by Al Makrizi in fournal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 
Jan. 1902. 



xii Preface 

which caused his death. Al Baladhurl was unknown 
to Weil. 

Ibn 'Add al Hakam died at Fustat in 870. His 
work exists only in a unique unpublished MS. at 
Paris, but arrangements are being made for its 
publication, to which oriental scholars look forward 
with keen interest. Copious extracts from this 
writer are given both by later Arabic historians and 
by Weil and Quatremere. There is a good deal of 
romance mingled with history in Ibn *Abd al 
Hakam's chronicle ; but a critical edition of it would 
be of very great importance. 

There are a number of early geographical writers 
in Arabic from whom many notes and references of 
historical value may be gathered. The text of 
most of them may be found in De Goeje's Bibliotheca 
Geographica Arabica, Among them may be named 
A I Istakhri (probably ninth century) ; Abu 'I Kdsim 
ibn Haukal (flor. circa 960) ; Shams ad Din al 
Makdast] Ibn Rust ah and Ibn al Fakth (flor. circa 
900) ; Ibn Wddhih ox A I Ydkubt (died 874), a very 
valuable authority, but again unknown to Weil ; and 
A I Masudt (flor. circa 960), a careful observer, and 
of great importance for the monuments of Alexandria. 

Ibn Kutaibah (828-89) ^^s left in his Kitdb al 
Mddrifdi sort of historical and biographical lexicon, 
as Wustenfeld says, *the oldest among all the 
purely historical works of the Arabs now extant ' : 
but he seems to have written entirely from oral 
tradition without the use of books. His writings are 
much quoted by later Arab authors, although, as 
might be expected, his matter is generally meagre 
and his style sketchy. 

We now come to a writer of high repute and, for 



Preface xiii 

the most part, of high importance, At Tabart (839- 
923). Born in Tabaristan, whence his name, after 
receiving a very good education he travelled in 
Irak, Syria, and Egypt, studying the Kuran, tradi- 
tion, law and history. Returning he settled at 
Baghdad and engaged in teaching and writing. His 
narrative is as a rule painstaking, minute, and 
circumstantial, but most unfortunately it is singularly 
wanting for the conquest of Egypt. For not only 
is the recital exceedingly scanty, but Tabari's ideas 
of geography and of chronology are confused and 
confusing, although the fault lies probably less with 
the historian than with the copyists who cut down 
the original, and had no knowledge to guide them 
in their selection and rejection of different passages 
and versions put side by side in the chronicle. 
This may explain the curious fact that he seems to 
place the capture of Alexandria before the capture 
of Memphis or Misr. 

The Christian writer Said ibn Batrik is too well 
known under his more usual name of Eutychius 
to need many words. He was born at Fustat in 
876 and died in 940. A distinguished student of 
medicine, theology, and history, he became Melkite 
Patriarch from 933 to his death. His annals end in 
938. He wove together in a very readable but 
uncritical story the various threads of narrative 
found in his authorities, and he has preserved many 
details of great interest. His chronology has a fixed 
error of eight years apart from any eccentricity. 
Another Christian, the Coptic bishop of Ushmunain, 
Sever us, ibn Mukaffd^ has written a Lives of the 
Patriarchs which is unpublished and little known, 
save for the use which Renaudot has made of the 



xiv Preface 

work. There are three known MSS. of this author, 
one at the British Museum of about fifteenth 
century, one at the Bibliotheque Nationale of about 
fourteenth, and one considerably earlier — perhaps 
twelfth century — in the possession of Marcus Simai- 
kah Bey at Cairo. While for matters of Church 
history Severus is valuable, his authority upon 
secular history is slender. He lived in the tenth 
century, but the exact date of his death has not 
been ascertained. The Paris MS. has a preface 
written by Mahbub ibn Mansur, a deacon of Alex- 
andria in the latter half of the eleventh century, 
who edited the * Lives.' In his own preface Severus 
says that he had recourse to some Copts to get 
Greek and Coptic documents turned into Arabic, 
as the two former languages even then were un- 
known to most Christians. This is interesting both 
as showing the state of decay reached by Coptic 
and Greek, and as showing Severus' own ignorance 
of both languages. Indeed the evidence as regards 
Coptic is so remarkable as to seem barely credible 
(see the Paris Catalogue of MSS., ed. de Slane, 
p. 83). 

From the ecclesiastical history of the Egyptian 
Severus we pass to a treatise on political jurispru- 
dence by Al Mdwardt of Baghdad (975-1058). As 
lawyer, judge, and statesman he attained a very 
high position, and was no less remarkable for his 
acumen and learning than for his integrity and 
independence of character. His Political Constitu- 
tions is a work of great ability and research, and 
the main source of our knowledge on the principles 
of Muslim taxation, as well as upon many other 
matters of law and custom. 



Preface xv 

With this exception, from the tenth century we 
have to leap across another gap to the twelfth, 
in which, we find the geography of Al Idrtsi, 
who was a great traveller, and at the age of about 
60 in the year 11 54 was an honoured guest at 
the court of Roger 11 in Sicily. Idrisis writings 
contain a mass of valuable information. A little 
later are the annals of Ibn al Athir (i 160-1232); 
those of Abu Sdlih his contemporary, who wrote 
circa 1200 and may have been born a few years 
before Ibn al Athir; and also the biographical 
dictionary of Ib7i Khallikdn, Ibn al Athir was a 
native of Mesopotamia, but studied chiefly at Mausil 
and Baghdad. Most of his life was spent in study 
or literary work, but he cannot be regarded for 
our purpose as other than an inferior authority. 
His account of the conquest seems based on a 
bad epitome of Tabari, and it only multiplies per- 
plexity : yet, curiously enough, when once the 
dark passage of the conquest is over, his Faultless 
Chronicle, as he called it, begins to increase in 
value. It seems as if there were a fate consigning 
the conquest to oblivion. Ibn Khallikan, who was 
a personal friend of Ibn al Athir, has left a most 
useful work in his Biographies, from which I have 
drawn much information. There is an excellent 
edition of the book in French by MacGuckin de 
Slane. Abii Salih's history of the Churches and 
Monasteries of Egypt is now well known owing to 
Mr. B. T. Evetts' Oxford edition. 

The Short Egyptian History of ^ Abd al Lattf 
has long been known from White's edition with 
Latin translation. Born in 1161 at Baghdad, the 
writer saw a good deal of the war with the Crusaders 



xvi Preface 

in the time of Saladin, though he was no soldier. 
But he travelled all over the Levant, and stayed a 
great deal in Egypt, where he first went to hear the 
wisdom of Maimonides. As doctor, philosopher, and 
historian he won. a very great reputation for learn- 
ing ; but his contribution to the history of Egypt 
is marred both by brevity and by discursiveness. 

K^/^^/ (i 1 78-1 228) is an interesting person and 
for the most part a sound authority. Born a Roman 
subject, he was sold as a slave at Baghdad to a 
merchant and was sent on trading journeys to the 
Persian Gulf. He parted on some quarrel from his 
master and took to study, while earning his living 
as a copyist. By 1200 he had become reconciled 
to his master, and again was trading to the island 
of Kis ; but upon his return he found the merchant 
dead. He then turned bookseller, author, and 
traveller. About 12 13 he visited Tabriz, Syria, 
Mausil, and Egypt: two years later he went east- 
ward from Damascus, and at the well-stocked library 
of Merv laid the foundation of his Geographical 
Dictionary , the rough draft of which he finished in 
1224. But he found it necessary to make a second 
journey to Alexandria, and his fair copy was not 
begun till 1227 in Aleppo. In the midst of his 
labours he died in the following year. It is much 
to be regretted that he was unable to revise what 
still remains a work of great historical as well as 
geographical importance. 

The Chronicle oi Al Makin or Ibn al ''Amid, 
called the History of the Muslims, is a collection of 
scanty notes arranged according to chronology. The 
book is well known from the text and Latin transla- 
tion published by Erpenius in 1625 ; and it has been 



Preface xvii 

much quoted by Gibbon and others, to whom it was 
one of the few Arabic authorities accessible. Less 
well known is Renaudot's judgement: *qui Elmacinum 
sequuntur, si Arabice nesciant, non ipsum sed inter- 
pretem sequi deprehenduntur, qui, ut in multis saepe 
falsus est, ita circa annorum Arabicorum cum Romanis 
comparationem saepissime ' {Hist, Pat. Alex, p. 172) : 
and again in regard to dates,' infinitis exemplis constat 
hallucinari saepissime Elmacinum' (id., ib.). Makin 
seems, as Renaudot shows, to have founded his 
chronicle, or a large part of it, on Severus — a fact 
which accounts for some of its untrustworthiness. 
The date of Makln's birth is circa 1205, but his 
history stops short of his own time by about a 
century. Although he was an Egyptian Christian, 
his work must be regarded as of small value to the 
student of Egyptian history. 

Abu' I Faraj (1226-86), called also Barhebraeus 
from his Jewish extraction, was born at Malatia 
in Armenia. He is well known from the Historia 
Dynastiarum, edited by Pococke with a Latin 
translation. This history, written in Arabic, is 
an abridgement by Abti '1 Faraj of a larger work 
written in Syriac. It contains the first detailed 
statement of the alleged burning of the Alexandrian 
library, but adds very little to our knowledge of the 
Arab conquest. The Chronicon Ecclesiasticum in 
Syriac by the same writer treats rather of the Syrian 
than the Alexandrian Church, but yields a few facts 
of value for our period. Abu '1 Faraj was a Jacobite 
Christian, who became bishop and finally Patriarch 
of his community. 

Another Biographical Dictionary — that of An 
Nawawi — contains a good deal which is of general 



xviii Preface 

interest, though not much of direct bearing on the 
conquest. He was born at Nawd near Damascus in 
1234; he devoted his life to study and teaching; and 
he died of overwork. His tomb is still preserved, 
and is revered as that of a saint. Al Kazwird, who 
died in 1283, ^^s left a Book of the Monuments of the 
Countries — a sort of guide to antiquities — which 
I have found of service in questions of archaeology. 

The Geography of Abu 'IFidd next claims mention. 
Valuable in itself, it is further enriched by the 
excellent edition of Reinaud, the introduction to 
which contains a very useful essay on the sources 
of Arab geography in general. Abii '1 Fida was a 
distinguished person. He came of the same family 
as Saladin and was reared in the same school of 
chivalry, delighting in battle from his very boyhood. 
Yet his intellectual side was strongly developed. He 
ended his life not merely as student and man of 
letters, but as Sultan of the principality of Hamat, 
where his court was the resort of men renowned 
in every branch of art and literature. He was born 
in 1273 and died in 1331. 

It may not be out of place, if, while speaking 
of geography, I here refer in passing to Amelineau's 
Gdographie de V Sgypte a V^poque Copte as an 
extremely useful work of reference for place-names 
both in Coptic and in Arabic, and also to Mr. Le 
Strangers essay on the Arab geographers in the 
Introduction to his Palestine under the Moslems, 

The name of Ibn Khaldun (i 332-1405) reminds 
us of the western extension of the Muslim empire. 
Though he himself was born at Tunis, his family 
had long been settled in Spain, and left Seville for 
Ceuta about a century before his birth. He studied 



Preface xix 

first in Tunis and then in Tilimsan : later he fol- 
lowed the Sultan of Granada back to Spain, and 
in person negotiated the treaty with Don Pedro 
the Cruel, King of Castile, which enabled the Sultan 
to re-enter his capital. Ibn Khaldun s history, as it 
survives, is blurred and darkened where it deals with 
the conquest of Egypt ; yet it has passages of great 
value and striking authenticity. 

In Al Makrtzt (1365-1441) we have an Egyptian 
authority, a Cairene by birth. His well-known 
A I Khitat wal A their is a monument of laborious 
compilation. He was a most voluminous writer, and 
he had access to a vast number of authorities, the 
greater part of whose works have absolutely perished. 
Accordingly he is, in mere point of matter, the most 
important of our authorities. But among his sources 
are very many authorities of small value, and ob- 
scure or even apocryphal writers. Hence with all 
his zeal and his labour Makrizt cannot be said 
to show any real critical or constructive power in 
dealing with the mass of rough material at his 
disposal. 

To Ibn Hajar al Askaldni (13 7 2-1 448) we owe 
another Dictionary of Biography, which is useful for 
the life of * Amr and other leaders at the time of the 
conquest. Born at Ascalon, as his name denotes, 
he travelled a great deal in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt. 
.He made the pilgrimage when he was ten years old, 
turned successively merchant, poet, and man of letters, 
and died at a ripe old age in Cairo. 

AbH 'I Mahdsin (1409-69) was the son of a slave 
whom the Sultan Barkuk raised to be governor first 
of Aleppo, then of Damascus : but the historian 

himself was born in Cairo and there educated, 

b 2 



XX Preface 

counting Makrlzl among his teachers. His history of 
Egypt is compiled on much the same method as 
that employed by Makrlzl, i. e. he sets out different 
versions of an event with little or no attempt to 
criticize or decide between them. 

The last of the historians to be named here is 
As Suj/utt {14.4.^-1 ^o^)y whose Husn al Mtihadarah 
is largely founded upon Makrizi, from whom he 
borrows whole passages verbatim, Suy^ti was 
a native of Cairo, though his family, originally of 
Persian extraction, had been settled for nearly three 
centuries at Siut in Upper Egypt. His father was 
a Cadi in Cairo, who taught in the Shaikanlah and 
preached in the mosque of Ibn Ttiltan. He began 
to write at a very early age, and boasted that his 
works were known in Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia, 
North Africa, and even Ethiopia : but his vanity and 
pugnacity made him very unpopular, and after losing 
or resigning the various professorships which he held, 
he retired in dudgeon to the Isle of Raudah, where 
he died. His history shows many signs of de- 
generacy even in comparison with his immediate 
predecessors ; but it is true of him, as of the others, 
that his selection of versions or traditions contains 
points of information or interest overlooked or 
rejected in other selections. 

But there is one other writer of considerable 
importance, not a historian but a writer on topo- 
graphy and archaeology, whose work was only 
discovered in 1891. I refer to Ibn Dukmdk, who 
was apparently an Egyptian, and who died in 1406. 
The Arabic text has been published by Dr. Vollers, 
whose preface appreciates very justly the remarkable 
erudition of the author. The main purpose of the 



Preface xxi 

work is indicated by its title — Description of Egypt — 
and many of the facts which Ibn Dukm^k preserves, 
especially in relation to the antiquities of Fustat and 
of Alexandria, are entirely novel and extraordinarily 
interesting. To give one example, he shows that 
the original gateway of the Roman fortress under 
the church of Al Mu allakah was in ordinary daily 
use in the year 1400. It is to be hoped that Dr. 
Vollers may publish a translation of this curious 
work. 

These then are the chief oriental authorities which 
I have drawn upon for this history. Not one of 
them contains a clear, a connected, or, as I am bound 
to say, an accurate account of the Arab conquest. 
Their confusion of dates, of events, and of persons 
almost passes belief. The confusion of the chrono- 
logy, and the labour it took to build a scheme both 
for the Persian and for the Arab conquest, may partly 
be judged from the Appendices. Theodore, the 
Roman commander-in-chief, seems unknown to the 
Arab writers, being confounded with some subordinate 
leader : Cyrus is confounded with Benjamin : the 
capture of the town of Misr is confounded with the 
taking of Egypt (Misr), and with the capture of 
Alexandria : the Treaty of Babylon is confounded with 
the Treaty of Alexandria : and the first surrender of 
Alexandria under treaty is confounded with the second 
capture by storm at the time of Manuel's rebellion. 
Of course I am very far from pretending to have 
made all this tangle plain ; but I have endeavoured 
to trace the main sources of confusion and to get at 
the facts underlying the discrepancies of the records. 
I have also tried to write without bias in favour 
of either Copts or Arabs. Beginning my study with 



xxii Preface 

the prevalent opinion that the Copts sided gladly 
with the Muslim invaders, I have been forced to the 
conclusion that history in this has greatly maligned 
the Copts ; and in the same way, beginning with the 
common belief that the Arabs burned the library of 
Alexandria, I have been forced to the conclusion 
that history in this has greatly maligned the Arabs. 
Both results were equally welcome ; for I have much 
admiration for both peoples ; but I hold a brief 
for neither. My one aim has been to discover 
and set out the truth, but I may hope that both 
Copts and Arabs will be interested in this attempt 
to distinguish fact from falsehood and to throw 
light upon a very dark chapter in the history of 
Egypt. 

In the spelling of Arabic words I have followed 
generally the system adopted in the Clarendon Press 
edition of Abii Salih, and sanctioned by the use 
of many English scholars : but I have not thought 
it necessary to transliterate in this manner words 
which have become naturalized in English, as 
Mohammed or Omar, Mecca or Cairo, In names of 
persons and places to which the article A lis pre- 
fixed, I have for the most part omitted the A I, as is 
done by Mr. Le Strange in his scholarly Baghdad, 
In certain cases it has proved far from easy to choose 
between competing Greek, Coptic, and Arabic forms 
of the same word : thus while, for example, I have 
preferred the Graeco-Coptic Nikiou, as the form 
in use at the time of the conquest, to the Arabic 
Nakyus, which is practically a dead word to-day, 
yet in speaking of the Fayum I felt obliged to use 
the familiar term rather than the Coptic Ptomov the 
Graeco-Roman Arsinoite Nome, These inconsis- 



Preface xxlii 

tencies are often deliberate, therefore, even if wrong, 
and must not at least be added to the list of un- 
intended errors and imperfections in the book. 

My thanks are due to the Rev. Dr. R. H. Charles 
for the loan of his translation of John of Nikiou ; to 
Mr. F. C. Conybeare for the loan of an English 
version of Sebeos; to Mr. B. T. Evetts for many 
translations from Arabic authors ; and to Mr. W. E. 
Crum, Mr. E. W. Brooks, and Professor Vollers of 
Jena, for valuable suggestions and criticisms. Among 
those who helped me during a recent visit to Egypt 
I must mention with gratitude His Eminence the 
Shaikh Muhammad *Abduh, Grand Mufti of Egypt, 
who presented me with his own notes and extracts 
relating to the conquest; Marcus Simaikah Bey, 
who helped me to collate his MS. of Severus and 
rendered me most useful assistance in many forms 
unsparingly ; Max Hertz Bey, who furnished me 
with much information concerning the Roman fortress 
at Babylon and other points of art and archaeology ; 
Capt. Lyons, R.E., of the Public Works Depart- 
ment ; Mons. P. Casanova, Director of the Institut 
Frangais; and Mr. E. A. Floyer, Head of the 
Telegraph Department, who aided me freely in 
questions relating to place-names and topography 
generally. Above all, my warmest acknowledgements 
are due to my friend the Very Rev. Dean Butcher 
of Cairo for the opportunity of revisiting Egypt in 
connexion with this work, and for the unfailing 
sympathy and encouragement with which he has 
followed and lightened it. 

A. J. B. 

Oxford, Sept. 22, 1902. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 






. 


page 
iii 


Chronological Tables: — 

A. General 

B. The Melkite Patriarchs of Alexandria . 

C. The Coptic Patriarchs of Alexandria 


xxvii 
xxviii 
xxviii 


Chief Authorities and Editions 


. . . 


. xxix 


Note on 


conversion of Hijrah years 


. 




. xxxiv 


Chapter 

I. Revolt of Heraclius 






I 


11. 


The Struggle for Egypt 


. 




8 


III. 


Failure of Bonosus 


, 




21 


IV. 


Accession of Heraclius . 


, 




33 


V. 


Egypt under the new Emperor 




42 


VI. 


Persian Conquest of Syria 


. 




54 


VII. 


Persian Conquest of Egypt 


. 




69 


VIII. 


Art and Literature 


. 




93 


IX. 


Crusade against Persia . 


. 




. 116 


X. 


Exaltation of the Cross 


. 




130 


XI. 


Rise of Mohammed . 


. 




138 


XII. 


Arab Conquest of Syria 


. 




154 


XIII. 


Great Persecution of the 


Copts b 


Y Cyrus 


. 168 


XIV. 


Arab Advance on Egypt 


. 




. 194 


XV. 


Opening of the Campaign 


. 




. 207 


XVI. 


Battle of Heliopolis 


. 




. 221 


XVII. 


The Fortress of Babylon 


. 




. 238 


XVIII. 


Siege and Surrender of Babylon 




. 249 


XIX. 


March on Alexandria 


. 




. 275 


XX. 


Events at Constantinople 


. 




. 299 


XXI. 


Surrender of Alexandria 


. 




. 310 



XXVI 



Contents 



Chapter 






PAGE 


XXII. 


Reduction of the Coast Towns 




■ 328 


XXIII. 


End of the Roman Dominion . 




358 


XXIV. 


Alexandria at the Conquest . 




368 


XXV. 


The Library of Alexandria . 




. 401 


XXVI. 


Conquest of Pentapolis . 




427 


XXVII. 


Restoration of Benjamin. 




• 439 


XXVIII. 


Muslim Government 




447^ 


XXIX. 


Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 




. 465 


XXX. 


Conclusion 




. 484 


Appendix 








A. On the Relic called the Holy Rood 


. 


. 496 


B. On the Chronology of the Persian Conquest 


. 498 


C. On the Identity of ' Al Mukaukas ' . 


. 


. 508 


D. On the Chronology of the Arab Conquest 


. 526 


E. On the Age of 'Amr ibn al 'Asi 


. 


. 546 


F. On the Dates of the Coptic Patriarchs 


after 






Benjamin in the Seventh Century 


. 


. 548 


Index 




. 


. 653 



MAPS AND PLANS 



1. The Delta to illustrate the Conquest . , frontispiece 

2. The Country from 'Arish to Tinnis . . to face page 209 

3. The Isle of Raudah . 248 

4. The Fortress of Babylon . . . . to face page 240 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES 



A. General, 

Revolt of Heraclius in Pentapolis 
Struggle for the possession of Egypt 
Heraclius crowned Emperor 
Persian invasion of Syria .... 
Capture of Jerusalem by the Persians 
Visit of Athanasius to Alexandria 
Persian advance into Egypt 
Persian capture or surrender of Babylon . 
Persian capture of Alexandria . 
Subjugation of the whole of Egypt . 
Heraclius' great campaign against Persia opens 
Hijrah of Mohammed .... 
Persian evacuation of Egypt 
Mohammed's letters to the Rulers . 
Final defeat and death of Chosroes . 
Exaltation of the recovered Cross at Jerusalem 
Cyrus sent as Imperial Patriarch to Alexandria 
The Great Persecution of the Copts . 
Death of Mohammed .... 
Arab conquest of Palestine and Syria 
Heraclius' farewell to Syria 
Surrender of Jerusalem to Omar 
Invasion of Egypt : 'Amr at 'Arish . 
Capture of Pelusium . . . . 
'Amr's raid into the Fayiim . . , 
Arrival of reinforcements under Zubair 
Battle of Heliopolis and capture of Misr . 
Siege of fortress of Babylon begun . 



First treaty of Babylon made by Cyrus, Al Mukaukas, but 



repudiated by Heraclius 
Recall of Cyrus 
Death of Heraclius . 



A.D. 

609 

609-10 

. 5 Oct. 6io 

614 

end of May, 615 

Oct. 615 

autumn, 616 

. spring, 617 

, end of 617 

. 618 

. spring, 622 

i6 July, 622 

627 

. 627-8 

Feb. 628 

14 Sept. 629 

631 

631-41 

632 

629-40 

. 636 

• 637 

. 12 Dec. 639 

Jan. 640 

May, 640 

. 6 June, 640 

. July, 640 

Sept. 640 



Oct. 640 

end of 640 

II Feb. 641 



XXVlll 



Chronolo^icr Tables 



Surrender of Babylon under (second) treaty 
Capture of Nikiou . . ' . 
Alexandria attacked .... 

Return of Cyrus to Egypt 
Capitulation of Alexandria 
Excavation of Trajan's Canal ) 
Building of Fustat J ' 

Death of Cyrus 

Enthronement of Cyrus' successor' . 
Evacuation of Alexandria by th« ;,)mans . 
'Amr's expedition to Pentapolis 
Restoration of Benjamin .... 
Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel . 
Second battle of Nikiou .... 
Recapture of Alexandria by the Arabs 
Recall of 'Amr from Egypt 
Reinstatement of 'Amr as Governor of Egypt 

Death of Benjamin 

Death of 'Amr 



B. Melkite Patriarchs. 



Theodore 

John the Almoner 

George . 

Cyrus 

Peter 



DATE OF CONSECRATION. 



609 
621 
631 

14 July, 642 



A.D. 

9 April, 641 

13 May, 641 
end of June, 641 

14 Sept. 641 
. 8 Nov. 641 

winter, 641-2 

21 March, 642 

14 July, 642 

17 Sept. 642 

winter, 642-3 

autumn, 644 

. end of 645 

late spring, 646 

summer, 646 

autumn, 646 

. Aug. 658 

. 3 Jan. 662 

. 6 Jan. 664 



DATE OF DEATH. 
609 

. 616 or 617 

. 630 or 631 

21 March, 642 

unknown 



Anastasius 

Andronicus 

Benjamin 

Agatho . 

John of Samanfid 

Isaac 

Simon 



C. Coptic Patriarchs, 



DATE OF CONSECRATION. 

June, 604 . 
Dec. 616 . 



Jan. 
Jan. 
Oct. 
4 Dec. 
Jan. 



623 
662 
680 
690 
694 



DATE OF DEATH. 

18 Dec. 616 
3 Jan. 623 
3 Jan. 662 

13 Oct. 680 

27 Nov. 689 
5 Nov. 693 

18 July, 701 



CHIEF AUTHORITIES AND EDITIONS 

'Abb al Latif: Historia Aegypti Compendiosa. Ed. White, 

Oxford, 1800. 4to. 
Abu'lFaraj: Historia DynasHarum. Ed.Pococke,Oxon. 1663. 4to. 
Abu 'lFida: Geography. Ed. J. T. Reinaud. Paris text 1840, 

trans. 1848 and 1883. 3 vols. 4to. 
AbO 'l Mahasin : An Nujtlm c^ Zahirah, &c. Ed. Juynboll et 

Matthes, Ltifd. Bat. 1855-61. 2 vols. 
Abu Salih : Churches and Monasteries of Egypt. Ed. Evetts and 

Butler. Oxford, 1895. 4to. 
Amelineau, E. : Vie d'un Eveque de Keft. Paris, 1887. 

Fragments Coptes, &c., in Journal Asiatique, 1888. 
Histoire du Patriarche Copte Isaac. Paris, 1890. 

8vo. 
Vie de Shenoudi in M^m. Miss. Arch. Fran9. t. IV. 

i. p. 340. 
Vie de Samuel: id., t. IV. ii. p. 774. 
Geographic de V Egypte a t^poque Qppte. Paris, 

1893, &c. 8vo. 
Histoire des Monasteres de la Basse Egypte. 
Paris, 1894. 
Ammianus Marcellinus. 

BalAdhuri, Al : Futuh al Bulddn. Ed. de Goeje. Lugd. Bat. 

1866. 4to. 
Barhebraeus (Abu 'l Faraj): Chronicon Ecclesiasticum. Ed. 

Abbeloos et Lamy. Louvain, 

1872. 3 parts. 8vo. 

BoTTi, G. : EAcropole d' Alexandrie et le Serapeum. Alexandrie, 

1895. 8vo. 

Fouilles a la Colonne Th^odosienne. Alexandrie, 1897. 8 vo. 

Brosset: Collection d' Historiens Arm6iiens. St. Petersbourg, 1874. 

2 torn. 8vo. 
Bury, Prof. J. B. : Gibbon's Decline and Fall. London, 1896. 
7 vols. 8vo. 
History 0/ the Later Roman Empire. London, 
1889. 2 vols. 8vo. 



XXX Chief Authorities and Editions 

Butcher, E. L. : Story of the Church of Egypt. London, 1897. 

2 vols. 8vo. 
Butler, A. J.: Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt, Oxford, 1884. 
2 vols. 8vo. 

Cedrenus. 

Champollion: EEgyptesouslesPharaons. Paris, 18 14. 2 vols. 8vo. 

Chronicon Orientate, 

Chronicon Paschale, ap. Migne, Fair. Gr. t. 92. 

Crum, W. E. : Coptic Ostraka. London, 1902. 8vo. 

D'Anville: Memoir es surVEgypte. Paris, 1766. 4to. 
De Bock, W. : Matiriaux pour servir a t ArcMologie de TEgypte 
Chretienne. St. P^tersbourg, 1901. Fol., with 
plates. 
De Goeje, M. J. : v. Baladhuri and Tabart 

Memoire sur les Carmathes du Bahrain. Leyde, 

1862. 
Conquete de la Syrie. Leyde, 1864. 
BiUiotheca Geographica Arahicorum. Lugd. Bat. 
1870-79. 8vo. 
DiEHL, C. : E Afrique Byzantine. Paris, 1896. 8vo. 

fustinien et la Civilisation Byzantine au VP Siecle. 
Paris, 1 90 1. 8vo. 
DKhVWiRO^y'L.: EEinpereur B&aclius. Paris, 1869. 8vo. 
Dulaurier: Chronologic Arm/nienne. Paris, 1859. 

Egypt Exploration Fund Reports. 

Epiphanius : De Ponder ibus et Mensuris. 

EuNAPius : Vita Aedesii. 

'Evs-E.BUjs: Historia Ecclesiastica. Ed. Heinechen. Leipzig, 1828. 

3 vols. 8vo. 
Eutychius, Patriarcha Alexandrinus : Annates: ap. Migne, Pair. Gr. 
Evetts AND Butler : v. Abu Sdlih. 

Gayet, a. : Le Costume en l^gypte. Paris, 1900. 

EArt Copte. Paris, 1902. 8vo. 
Gelzer, H. : Leontios' von Neapolis Lehen des He^ligen fohannes. 

Leipzig, 1893. Svo. 
George of Pisidia : ap. Migne. 



Chief Authorities and Editions xxxi 

Gregorovius, F. : The Emperor Hadrian : tr. M. E. Robinson. 
London, 1898. 8vo. 

Hamaker : Expugnatio Memphidis : v. Wakidi. 

Holm, A.: History of Greece-, tr. F. Clarke. London, 1898. 

4 vols. 8vo. 
Hyvernat, H. : Actes des Martyrs de VEgypte. Paris, 1886. Fol. 

Ibn 'Abd al Hakam. Paris MS. 

Ibn al AxHtR : Faultless Chronicle. Ed. C. J. Tornberg. Leyden, 

1868-74. 
Ibn al Fakih : v. De Goeje, Bibl. Geog. Arab. 
Ibn Dukmak: Description de I' Egypte. Arabic text. Ed. Dr. 

K. Vollers. Cairo, 1893. 8vo. 
Ibn Hajar: Diet. Biogr. Ed. A. Sprenger and others. 1856. 4 vols. 
Ibn Haukal : v. De Goeje, Bibl. Geog. Arab. 
Ibn Khaldun: Kitdb al dbar, &c. Bulak, a. h. 1283. 7 parts. 
Ibn Khallikan : Diet. Biogr. Ed. de Slane. Paris, 1842, &c. 

4 vols. 4to. 
Ibn Kutaibah: Kitdb al Mddrif. Ed. Wiistenfeld. Gottingen, 

1850. 
Ibn Rustah : v. De Goeje, Bibl. Geog. Arab. 
Idrisi, Al : Geographia Nubiensis. Paris, 1609. 4to. 
Istakhri, Al : v. De Goeje, Bibl. Geog. Arab. 

Jarrett, H. S. : History of the Caliphs-, see Suyfitt. 

Karabacek, J. : Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus 
Erzherzog Rainer, Wien, 1887, &c. Fol. 
Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer: Fuhrer durch die 
Ausstellung. Wien, 1894. 4to. 
Kazwini, Al: Cosmography. Ed. Wiistenfeld. Gottingen, 1848-9. 

8vo. 
KoellEjS.W.: Mohammed and Mohammedanism. London, 1889. 8vo. 
Kyrillos II, Mgr. : Le Temple du Cesareu?n, in Bulletin de la 
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S^rie, No. 6, Fev. 1900 (Le Caire). 

Lane-Poole, Prof. S. : Art of the Saracens in Egypt. London, 

1886. 8vo. 



xxxii Chief Authorities and Editions 

'Lk'^^''?ooi.-E.,Vioi.^.\ Egypt in the Middle Ages, London, 190 1. 8vo. 
The Story of Cairo in * Mediaeval Towns ' Series. 
London, 1902. 
Le Beau, C. : Histoire du Bas Empire. Ed. de Saint-Martin. Paris, 

1824-38. 21 vols. 8vo. 
Le Strange, G. : Palestine under the Moslems. London, 1890. 8vo. 
Lethaby and Swainson: St. Sophia^ Constantinople. London, 

1894. 8vo. 

Mahaffy, Prof. J. P. : Empire of the Ptolemies. London, 1895. 8vo. 
Makin, Al : Historia Saracenica. Ed. T. Erpenius. Lugd. Bat. 

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Mk-KKizijkL'. Khitat. Bulak, a. h. 1270. 2 vols. V. also Malan. 
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Maynard. Paris, 1863. 8vo. 
Matter, M. : Histoire de V Ecole d Alexandrie. Paris, 1840. 

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Ma ward!, Al: Kitdb al AMdm as Sultaniak Ed. M. Enger. 

Bonn, 1853. 8vo. 
Michel LE Grand : Chronique. Ed. V. Langlois. Paris, 1866. 4to. 
Michelle Syrien : Cy^r(?«z'^2/^. Ed.J.B.Chabot. Paris, 1899, &c: 4to. 
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Milne, J. G. : Egypt under Roman Rule. London, 1898. 8vo. 
MoscHUS, John : Pratum Spirituale. Ap. Migne, Patr. Gr, 
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Nasiri Khusrau: Sefer Nameh, Ed. C. Schefer. Paris, 1 881. 8vo. 
Nawawi, An : Biographical Dictionary : ed. Wiistenfeld. Gottingen, 

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N^ROUTSOS Bey : L'Ancienne Alexandrie. Paris, 1888. 8vo. 
Nicephorus. 
Nicephorus Callistus. 

Niebuhr, C. : Voyage en Arabie. Amsterdam, 1776. 4 vols. 4to. 

NiKiou, Jean de : Chronique. Ed. Zotenberg in t. xxiv of * Notices 

et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibl. Nat.' &c. 

Paris, 1883. 4to. 

Also English translation lent by Dr. Charles. 

\ '^ov'Siisso'^,Y .: La Bibliotheque des PtoMm^es. Alexandrie, 1893. 4to. 



Chief Authorities and Editions xxxiii 

OcKLEY, S. : History of the Saracens, Ed. Bohn. London, 1847. 

8vo. 
Orosius: Historiae. 

Palestine Pilgrims Text Society's Publications. 

Papyri: Corpus Papyrorum Raineri. Ed. J. Krall (Coptische Texte). 

Fayum Towns and their Papyri, Ed. Grenfell and Hunt. 

The Amherst Papyri. Ed. P. E. Newberry. 

Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Ed. Grenfell and Hunt. 

Pereira, F. M. E. : Vida do Abba Samuel do Mosteiro do Kalamon. 
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Vida do Abba Daniel do Mosteiro de ScetL 

Lisboa, 1897. 8vo. 
Historia dos Martyres de Nagran. Lisboa, 
1899. 8vo. 
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tEgypte. Paris, 1808. 8vo. 
Memoires Geographiques et Historiques sur 
VJ&gypte. Paris, 18 11. 2 torn. 8vo. 

Renaudot : Historia Pairiarcharum A lexandrinorum. Paris, 1 7 1 3 • 

4to. 
RuFiNUS : Vitae Patrum. 

Historia Ecclesiastica. 

Sa'id ibn BATRfK : V. Eutychius. 

Sebeos : translation lent by Mr. Conybeare. 

Severus of Ushmunain: Brit. Mus. MS. Or. 26,100; Paris MS. ; 

and M. Simaikah Bey s Cairo MS. 
Sharpe, S. : Egypt under the Romans. London, 1842. 8vo. 

History of Egypt. Ed. Bohn. London, 1885. 2 vols. 
Simaikah, A. : La Province Romaine de tEgypte. Paris, 1892. 8vo. 
Socrates : Historia Ecclesiastica. 
SoPHRONius : Opera, ap. Migne, Patr. Gr. 
SozoMEN : Historia Ecclesiastica. 

Strzygowski, J. : Orient oder Rom. Leipzig, 1 901. 8vo. 
SusEMiHL, F. : Geschichte der Griechischen Litter atur in der Alexan- 

drinerzeit. Leipzig, 1 891-2. 2 vols. 8vo. 
Suyuti, As: Husn al Muhddarah. Bulak, a. h. 1299. 

History of the Caliphs : tr. H. S. Jarrett. Calcutta, 
1 88 1. 8vo. (Bibl. Ind. t. 18, series iii.) 

BUTLER C 



xxxiv Chief Authorities and Editions 

Tabar!, At: Tdrikh ar Rusul wal MuluK (i) Ed. Zotenberg. 

Paris, 1 87 1. 4 vols. 8vo. (2) Ed. De Goeje. 

Lugd. Bat. 1879-90. 8vo. 
TarIkh Jahan Ara: tr. Sir W. Ouseley. London, 1779. Svo. 
TarIkh Regum Persiae. Ed. W. Schikard. Tubingen, 1628. 4to. 
Theodoret: Historia EcclesiasHca. 
Theophanes. 

UsENER, H. : De Stephano Alexandrino. Bonn, 1880. Svo. 
Acta Marty ris Anastasii. Bonn, 1894. 4to. 

Vansleb: Histoire de t Eglise d^ Alexandrie. Paris, 1677. i2mo. 
Nouvelle Relation dun Voyage fait en J^gypte. Paris, 
1698. i2mo. 
VoN GuTSCHMiD, A. I Kleine Schriften. Leipzig, 1889-94. Svo. 
VonRanke: Weltgeschichte. Leipzig, 1884. Several vols. Svo. 

Wakidi, Al (so-called), Kitdb FutUh Misr {Expugnatio Memphidis). 

Ed. Hamaker. Leyden, 1S25. 4to. 
Weil: Geschichte der Chali/en. Mannheim, 1846. 3 vols. Svo. 
Wright, T. : Christianity in Arabia. London, 1855. Svo. 

Ya'kubi, Al: Ibn Wddhih qui dicitur Al Yd MM Historiae. Ed. 
M. T. Houtsma. Lugd. Bat. 1S83. 2 vols. 

De Goeje, Bibl. Geog. Arab. 
YakOt : Mttjdm al Bulddn, or Geographical Dictionary. Ed. 

Wiistenfeld. Leipzig, 1866-73. 6 vols. 

Zachariah of Mitylene : Chronicle : tr. Hamilton and Brooks. 

London, 1889. Svo. 
Zoega, G. : Catalogus Codd. Copticorum MSS. Romae, 18 10. Fol. 



Conversion of Hij rah years into Anni Domini, 

A TABLE showing every year of the Hijrah from a. h. i to 
A. H. 1000 with the date of commencement for the corresponding 
year a.d.^ is given at the end of Professor Stanley Lane-Poole's 
Story of Cairo. 



CHAPTER I 

REVOLT OF HERACLIUS 

Brief sketch of the Emperors from Justinian to Maurice. The 
Roman Empire in the reign of Phocas. State of Egypt. Revolt 
of Pentapolis under the leadership of Heraclius. Plan of campaign. 
The common story, as told by Gibbon, discredited. The Chronicle 
of John, bishop of Nikiou in the Delta. 

At the opening of the seventh century the Roman 
Empire seemed passing from decline to dissolution. 
Sixty years earlier the power of Justinian had spread 
from the Caucasus and Arabia in the east to the 
Pillars of Hercules in the west, and his strong 
personality so filled men's minds that it seemed, as 
the phrase ran, as if * the whole world would not 
contain him ^.* His splendour was equal to his power, 
and for a while at least his wisdom was equal to his 
splendour. Moreover his triumphs in the realms 
of science and art were even more striking than his 
exploits in war : for of the two foremost achievements 
by which his name is remembered, the Code and 
Digest of Justinian still remain the greatest master- 
pieces of jurisprudence, while the Cathedral of 
St. Sophia stands to all time as the most splendid 
monument and model of Byzantine architecture. 

But the menace of decay was felt even in Justinian's 
lifetime. To the mischief, moral and political, which 
threatened the state, were added physical calamities. 
The whole of the East was scourged by a plague, 
which broke out at Pelusium, and swept through 

* Professor Bury, quoting from Procopius, History of the Later 
Roman Empire ^ vol. i. pp. 470-1. 

^ BUTLER B 



2 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Egypt to Libya and through Palestine to Persia 
and Constantinople. After the plague came an earth- 
quake, which wrought almost as much destruction 
to the cities as the black death to the peoples of the 
Empire. The last days of the great lawgiver were 
clouded by a sense of gloom and foreboding. The 
government was breaking up, even before his suc- 
cessor Justin closed his brief and nerveless reign in 
insanity. Tiberius, who came to the throne in 578, 
gave some promise of better things. He might at 
least have essayed to arrest the process of decay : 
but his life was cut short before he could prove his 
worth, and he bequeathed to Maurice a bankrupt 
exchequer, a discontented people, and a realm out of 
joint. 

Only a man of the strongest brain and of unerring 
judgement could have dealt with such a crisis : and 
Maurice, though well-meaning, was not the man 
for the task. That blind disregard of changing 
circumstance which so often ruins the application 
of wise principles marred and thwarted his policy. 
His army reforms and his knowledge of military 
tactics — on which he wrote excellently — could not 
save his forces from defeat; while his zeal for 
economy to repair the finances of the state failed in 
its purpose, and so estranged and wearied his people, 
that they tossed the crown contemptuously to an 
illiterate and deformed rebel centurion — Phocas. 

It now seemed as if nothing could save the Empire 
from ruin. The only strength of Phocas was that 
of a tyrant upheld by a licentious army and a corrupt 
nobility — a strength which diminished with every 
mile's distance from the capital. Thus all the 
provinces of the Empire lay under a kind of agony 
of misrule, which was probably lightest in the regions 



Revolt of Heraclius 3. 

torn by war with the Persians or with the northern 
barbarians. 

Certainly no part of the Roman dominion was in 
worse plight than Egypt. There Justinian's efforts 
to force the orthodox religion on the nonconforming 
Copts had been partly balanced by Theodora's open 
sympathy for their creed ^ : but all such sympathy 
was recklessly cancelled by Justin. So the ancient 
and bitter strife between the Melkite and Monophy- 
site parties was more embittered than ever : and for 
the Copts it filled the whole horizon of thought and 
hope. Where the two mainsprings of government 
were the religious ascendency and the material profit 
of the Byzantine Court, and where the machinery 
worked out steady results of oppression and misery, 
it is small wonder that the clash of arms was often 
heard in Alexandria itself, while not only was Upper 
Egypt haunted by bands of brigands ^ and harried 
by raids of Beduins or Nubians, but even the Delta 
was the scene of riots and feuds little short of civil 
war^. The fact is that the whole country was in 
a state of smouldering insurrection. 

Phocas reign began on November 22, a. d.' 602. 
On that day he was crowned with all due solemnity 
by the Patriarch Cyriacus in the church of St. John 
at Constantinople, and entering the city by the 
Golden Gate drove in state by the great colonnades 
and through the principal streets amid crowds that 
received him with joyful acclamations. By the 

* See Prof. Bury's History of the Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. 
pp. 8-9, where he quotes from R. Payne Smith's translation of the 
^yx\2,z John of Ephesus a curious account of the conversion of the 
Nobadae, who occupied a region east of the Nile in Upper Egypt. 

^ See John Moschus, Pratum Spirituale^ ap. Migne, Patr. Gr. 
0. 143. 

* John of Nikiou (tr. Zotenberg), pp. 529 seq. 

B 2 



4 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

beginning of the year 609 the Empire was ready for 
revolution. It began at Pentapolis. The common 
form which the story takes is that Crispus, who had 
married the daughter of Phocas, incurred the Em- 
peror's furious resentment by setting up his own 
statue with that of his bride in the Hippodrome : 
and that having thus quarrelled, he plotted rebellion 
and invited Heraclius, the Prefect of Africa, to put 
the scheme in action. The fact however is — and 
Cedrenus expressly records it — that Heraclius was 
planning insurrection unbidden of Crispus. Indeed 
Crispus was not the man to take any initiative : but 
when he heard of the unrest in Pentapolis, then he 
ventured to send secret letters of encouragement, 
and promised help in the event of Heraclius making 
a movement on Constantinople. Heraclius himself 
was somewhat old for an adventure of the kind ^ — 
he cannot have been less than sixty-five — but in his 
son and namesake, who was now in the prime of 
life, and in Nicetas his friend and lieutenant-general, 
he saw at once the fitting instruments of his design. 
The plan of campaign has been much misunder- 
stood. Gibbon lends the great weight of his 
authority to the somewhat childish story that the 
two commanders agreed upon a race to the capital, 
the one advancing by sea and the other by land, 
while the crown was to reward the winner 2. They 
were starting, be it remembered, from Cyrene ^ : 

* He had been commander-in-chief in the Persian wars under 
Maurice. 

^ Even Diehl adopts this legend: see L'A/rtque Byzantine^ 
p. 520. 

' Some authorities make Heraclius start from Carthage : but 
from John of Nikiou it is fairly clear that the younger Heraclius 
set out from Cyrene, and that some time after his departure 



Revolt of Heraclius 5 

and given anything like similar forces at starting, 
surely a more unequal competition was never devised. 
Heraclius had merely to cross the Mediterranean, 
coast along Greece and Macedonia, and then to 
fling his army on the capital : while Nicetas, accord- 
ing to the received theory, marching to Egypt, had 
to tiear that country from the, grasp of Phocas, 
then to make a long and toilsome journey through 
Palestine, Syria, Cilicia and Asia Minor, under such 
conditions that even a succession of brilliant victories 
or the collapse of all resistance would, in mere point of 
time, put him out of the running for the prize. No : 
if there was any idea at all of a race for empire, 
which is extremely doubtful, the course was marked 
out with far more simplicity and equality. For it 
must be obvious that the province of Pentapolis 
could not have furnished material for a very con- 
siderable army, still less for two armies : and what 
the leader of each expedition had to do was not 
merely to set out for Byzantium, but to raise the 
standard of revolt as he went, to gather supplies 
and reinforcements, and then possibly to unite in 
dealing a crushing blow at the capital. In pursu- 
ance of this plan Heraclius was to adventure by sea 
and Nicetas by land — unquestionably: but what 
Gibbon and the Greek historians have failed to 
see clearly is this — that while the immediate objec- 
tive of Heraclius was Thessalonica, that of Nicetas 
was Alexandria : and that all depended on the acces- 
sion or subjugation of these two towns for the 
success of the enterprise. 

It is hardly doubtful that Heraclius had intimate 
relations with the people of Thessalonica, or at 

the elder Heraclius made an expedition against Carthage and after 
capturing the city took up his residence there. 



6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

least with a party among them : while Nicetas 
calculated on a welcome or a slight resistance in 
Egypt, though, as will be shown, his calculations 
were upset by the unforeseen intervention of a 
formidable enemy. But I must again insist — in 
opposition to Gibbon— that Nicetas' one aim was 
the conquest of Egypt : that Egypt was the pivot on 
which his combinations with Heraclius turned, and 
the only barrier between him and Constantinople : 
and that, when once he possessed the recruiting- 
ground and the granary of the Nile together with 
the shipping and dockyards of Alexandria, it would 
have been madness to plunge through Syria and 
Asia instead of moving straight to the Dardanelles 
and joining forces with Heraclius. 

This then was the plan : Heraclius with his 
galleys was to make for Thessalonica and there 
prepare a formidable fleet and army, while Nicetas 
was to occupy Alexandria — the second city of the 
Empire — so as at once to cut off the corn supplies 
from Constantinople, and to secure the strongest 
base for equipping an armament against Phocas, 
or at least to prevent his deriving help from that 
quarter ^ 

The whole incident is dismissed by the well-known 
Byzantine historians in a few lines, and the part 
played by Egypt in the revolution has hitherto 
scarcely been suspected. But an entirely new 
chapter of Egyptian history has been opened since 

^ The nearly contemporary Armenian historian Sebeos justly 
appreciates the action of Heraclius. He says : * Then Heraclius 
the general, with his army which was in the region of Alexandria, 
revolted from Phocas : and, making himself tyrant, he occupied the 
land of the Egyptians.' A scanty account, but it hinges the success 
of the rebellion on the capture of Egypt, as a right estimate of the 
situation requires. 



Revolt of Heraclius 7 

the discovery — or rather since the translation into 
a European language — of an Ethiopic MS. version 
of the Chronicle of John, bishop of Nikiou, an 
important town in the Delta of Egypt. John 
himself, who lived in the latter half of the seventh 
century of our era, must have spoken with many 
old men who witnessed or remembered the events 
connected with the downfall of Phocas. His Chroni- 
cle, therefore, is of very great importance. In spite 
of its passage from language to language, where the 
MS. is not mutilated, its accuracy is often most 
minute and striking : and though there are errors 
and inconsistencies, they are balanced by the amount 
of new knowledge which it discloses. Indeed the 
work throws all sorts of novel and curious lights on 
the history of the Eastern Empire, of the Patriarchs 
of Alexandria, and of Egypt generally during a period 
of extraordinary interest — a period which has suffered 
even greater neglect than is warranted by the 
scantiness and imperfection of the materials ; and 
it supplements and corrects in many curious ways 
the inadequate and faulty narratives of Theophanes, 
Cedrenus, and Nicephorus. 



CHAPTER II 

THE STRUGGLE FOR EGYPT 

March on Egypt. Leontius, Prefect of Mareotis, in the plot. 
The country between Pentapolis and Egypt. Its fertility and 
population. Phocas alarmed about Alexandria. Nicetas, advancing 
from the west, wins a battle close to the city. His welcome. 
Bonosus, Phocas' general, hurries from Syria. Nikiou surrenders 
to him. His army reaches Alexandria. Naval assault under Paul 
repulsed. 

From the Egyptian bishop's Chronicle we learn 
that even in Pentapolis there was some fighting. 
By large expenditure of money Heraclius assembled 
here a force of 3,000 men and an army of * bar- 
barians,' i.e. doubtless Berbers, which he placed 
under the command of 'Bonakis* as he is called 
in the Ethiopic corruption of a Greek name. By 
their aid he won an easy victory over the imperial 
generals Mardius, Ecclesiarius, and Isidore, and at 
one blow put an end to the power of Phocas in 
that part of Africa. At the same time, * KisiF the 
governor of Tripolis sent a contingent which probably 
passed to the south of Pentapolis. In any case 
Nicetas now began his advance along the coast 
towards Alexandria, and was joined at some point 
by both Kisll and Bonakis. He was secure of 
a friendly reception up to the very borders of 
Egypt : for Leontius, Prefect of Mareotis, the 
Egyptian province on the western side of Alexandria, 
had been won over, and had promised a considerable 
body of troops. 

It is thought that nowadays such a march would 



Struggle for Egypt 9 

He almost entirely through a waterless desert ; but 
there is abundant evidence to show that in the 
seventh century of our era there were many flourish- 
ing towns, palm groves, and fertile tracts of country, 
where now little is known or imagined to be but 
a waste of rocks and burning sands. The subject 
is one of some interest to scholars and to explorers, 
and some brief remarks upon it may be pardoned. 
From Ptolemy we know that the province of Cyrene 
ceased on the eastern side at a city called Darnis, 
where the province of Marmarica began. Moving 
eastward, Nicetas must have passed among other 
places the city of Axilis, the towns of Paluvius, 
Batrachus, and Antipyrgus, and the promontory of 
Cataeonium, all in the nome of Marmarica. The 
nome of Libya began near Panormus, and included 
among other towns Catabathmus, Selinus, and 
Paraetonium ^, or Ammonia as it was also called 
according to Strabo. Paraetonium was the capital 
and the seat of government of the Prefect : the 
name seems to have lingered in the Arabic Al 
Barttin. Still further east in the same nome we 
come to Hermea, then to Leucaspis ; and half way 
between Leucaspis and Chimovicus began the nome 
of Mareotis, in which the best known towns were 
Plinthine in Tainia, Taposiris Magna, the fortress 
of Chersonesus, and the city of Marea or Mareotis. 
Both Ptolemy and Strabo give many other names, 
and it is certain that in the first century Egyptian 
territory was regarded as ending where Cyrenaic 
began, and that there was no break of impassable 
country between them. Later the nome of Libya 
suffered some decay, and in the sixth century 

^ It was from Paraetonium that Alexander the Great struck off 
into the desert on his famous visit to the temple of Ammon. 



10 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Justinian compensated the Prefect for the poverty 
of his province by throwing the nome of Mareotis 
in with his government. But even then the way 
from Pentapolis to Alexandria was in well-defined 
stages, with no serious gaps or breaks : nor had the 
continuous character of the route changed at the 
time of which I am writing. This is proved beyond 
doubt. For we know that early in the seventh 
century the Persian arm}^ after the subjugation of 
Egypt, moved on by land to the conquest of 
Pentapolis, and returned after a successful campaign, 
in which, according to Gibbon, were finally exter- 
minated the Greek colonies of Gyrene. This, be 
it remembered, was only eight or nine years after 
the march of Nicetas. But Gibbon is altogether 
mistaken in his view of the devastation wrought by 
Chosroes' troops in that region. Great it was, but 
in no way fatal or final. On the contrary, less than 
thirty years later, when *Amr Ibn al *Asi the Saracen 
captured Alexandria, his thoughts turned naturally 
to Pentapolis, and to Pentapolis he went, conquering 
Barca and Gyrene. There is no record or hint of 
either march being regarded as a great military 
achievement or triumph over natural difficulties. 

Indeed nothing could be more false than to 
picture the route as lying across inhospitable deserts. 
For there is express evidence that practically the 
whole of the coast provinces west of Egypt continued 
well populated and well cultivated for some three 
centuries after they fell under Arab dominion. 
The Arab writer Al Makrizi mentions the city 
of Lubiah as the centre of a province between 
Alexandria and Marakiah, showing that the classi- 
cal names Libya and Marmarica were retained by 
the Arabs almost unaltered. In another passage 



Struggle for Egypt ii 

he says that, after passing the cities of Lublah 
and Marakiah, one enters the province of Penta- 
poHs : and Al Kuda^i and Al Mas*udi concur 
in similar testimony. The canton of Lublah 
contained twenty-four boroughs besides villages. 
Makrizi's account of Marakiah — taken from Quatre- 
mere's version of it- — is In substance as follows : 
* Marakiah is one of the western districts of 
Egypt, and forms the limit of the country. The 
city of that name is two stages, or twenty-four 
miles, distant from Santaiiah. Its territory is very 
extensive and contains a vast number of palm-trees, 
of cultivated fields, and of running springs. There 
the fruits have a delicious flavour, and the soil 
is so rich that every grain of wheat sown produces 
from ninety to a hundred ears. Excellent rice too 
grows in great abundance. Even at the present 
day there are very many gardens in this canton. 
Formerly Marakiah was occupied by tribes of 
Berbers; but in the year 304 a. h. {916 a. d.) the 
inhabitants of Lublah and Marakiah were so harried 
by the Prince of Barca that they withdrew to 
Alexandria. From that date onwards Marakiah 
steadily declined, and now it is almost in ruins. 
But it still preserves some remnant of its ancient 
splendour \' 

The last words evidently refer to the city, not 
the province : they are remarkable as showing how 
much was left even in 1400 a. d. and we may 
mention, as at any rate curious, the fact that the 
Portolanos, or Venetian navigation charts, of about 
the year 1500, show at least an unbroken series of 
names along this part of the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean. But Makrlzl has also something to say 
^ Mem. Geog. et Hist. ch. i. pp. 374-5. 



12 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

of Mareotis. Formerly he declares that It was 
covered with houses and gardens, which at one 
time were dotted over the whole country westward 
up to the very frontiers of Barca. In his own 
time Mareotis was only a town in the canton of 
Alexandria, and used that city as the market for the 
abundant produce of its fruit-gardens. Champollion 
says that under the old Egyptian Empire it was the 
capital of Lower Egypt, and gradually sank into 
decay after the foundation of Alexandria. In the 
time of Vergil and Strabo it was, as they testify, 
at least renowned for its wine. To-day the ruins 
that mark the site, twelve miles west of Alexandria, 
are practically unknown, but the soil beneath the 
sand is found to be alluvial, in confirmation of its 
ancient repute for fertility. 

It is, then, clear that before the Arab conquest 
there was a continuous chain of towns, and an 
almost unbroken tract of cultivated land, stretching 
from Alexandria to Cyrene, and that the march of 
Nicetas demanded no great qualities of generalship 
or endurance. Even at the present time it is 
probable that the difficulties of the route are greatly 
exaggerated : for Muslim pilgrims constantly make 
their way on foot from Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli 
along the coast to Egypt. The country abounds in 
Greek and Roman remains ; but the people are 
fanatics of the lowest type. The wandering Arab 
keeps out the wandering scholar, and the whole 
region, though its shores are washed by the 
Mediterranean and lie almost in sight of Italy and 
Greece, is more . lost to history and to archaeology 
than if it were in the heart of the Sahara. The 
fact is, of course, as much due to the rule of the 
Turk as to the fanaticism of the Beduin: but 



Struggle for Egypt 13 

the two form a combination enough to make 
travel almost impossible. But if ever the country 
falls under a civilized power, It will be a splendid 
field for exploration, and might even, with proper 
engineering works, resume something of its ancient 
fertility and prosperity. 

This digression, however, has taken long enough. 
It enables us to follow the movements of Nicetas' 
army, and to infer that though he met with few 
perils on the way, yet that the time occupied on 
the march must have been considerable. Meanwhile 
in the Egyptian capital plot and counterplot were 
working. Theodore, son of Menas, who had been 
Prefect of Alexandria under the Emperor Maurice, 
and one Tenkera (by whom Zotenberg wrongly 
thinks Crispus may be meant), had engaged together 
to put Phocas to death and secure the crown for 
Heraclius. The Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria, 
another Theodore, who had received his seat from 
Phocas, knew nothing of this conspiracy; but John, 
the Governor of the Province and Commander of 
the Garrison, and yet another Theodore, the Con- 
troller of Finance, revealed it to him: whereupon 
the three addressed a joint letter of warning to 
Phocas. 

The Emperor well knew the uncertain temper 
of the Egyptians : and, with a view to humour them, 
he had lately sent from Syria a large consignment 
of lions and leopards for a wild-beast show, together 
with a collection of fetters and instruments of torture, 
as well as robes of honour and money, for just 
apportionment between his friends and foes. But 
on receipt of the letter from the Patriarch, while 
professing to disdain the menace of revolt, yet 
knowing the supreme necessity of holding Egypt 



14 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

at all costs, he neither faltered in resolve nor 
paltered in action. Summoning the Prefect of 
Byzantium, he took from him a solemn oath of 
allegiance, and dispatched him with large reinforce- 
ments both for Alexandria and for the important 
garrison towns of Manuf and Athrtb in the Delta. 
At the same time he sent urgent orders to Bonosus 
in Syria to hurl all his available troops on Egypt. 
For Bondsus was now at Antioch, where he had 
been sent, with the title of ' Count of the East/ to 
crush a revolt of the Jews against the Christians — 
a revolt which seems to have been rather religious 
than political, although the threads of politics and 
of religion are often indistinguishable in the tissue 
of history at this period. Yet so well or so ill did 
Bonosus achieve his bloody work by wholesale 
massacre, by hanging, drowning, burning, torturing, 
and casting to wild beasts, that he earned a name 
of execration and terror. Indeed he was a man 
after JPhocas own heart — a 'ferocious hyena' who 
revelled in slaughter — and he hailed Phocas' message 
with delight. 

Meanwhile Nicetas was nearing Alexandria on 
the west. The town of Kabsain (which may possibly 
be identified with Fort Chersonesus) surrendered, 
and the garrison were spared, but the prisoners of 
the revolting faction were released and joined the 
march. Messengers were sent on ahead to spread 
the rebellion in the country round the Dragon Canal 
— so called from its serpentine windings — which was 
close to the city. But finding that the imperial 
forces, strong in numbers and well armed, barred 
his passage here, Nicetas summoned the general to 
surrender. 'Stand aside from our path,' he said, 
*and remain neutral, pending the issue of the war. 



Struggle for Egypt 15 

If we fail, you will not suffer ; if we succeed, you 
shall be Governor of Egypt. But the reign of 
Phocas is finished ! ' The answer was brief — ' We 
fight to the death for Phocas ' : and the battle began. 
It is probable that the general was the one under 
special oath to defend the Emperor, and that he 
fought with better heart than his soldiers. For 
Nicetas was completely victorious : the imperial 
general was killed, and his head set on a pike and 
borne with the conquering standards through the 
Moon Gate into the city, where no further resistance 
was offered. John, the Governor, and Theodore, 
the Controller of Finance, took refuge in the church 
of St. Theodore in the eastern part of the town : 
while the Melkite Patriarch fled to the church of 
St. Athanasius, which stood by the sea shore. 
John of Nikiou is silent concerning the Patriarch's 
fate ; but we know from other sources that he 
perished. 

The clergy and people now assembled, and agreed 
in their detestation of Bonosus and his wild beasts 
and in their welcome to Heraclius' general. They 
set the head of the slain commander on the gate ; 
seized the palace and government buildings, as well 
as the control of the corn and the exchequer ; took 
possession of all Phocas' treasure ; and last, but not 
least, secured the island and fortress of Pharos and 
all the shipping. For Pharos, as Caesar saw and 
said long before, was one key of Egypt, as Pelusium 
was the other. Thus master of the capital, Nicetas 
dispatched Bondkis to carry the revolution through 
the Delta. It proved an easy task, for everywhere 
the native Egyptians hated the rule of Byzantium. 
Town after town made common cause with the 
delivering army. Nikiou, with its bishop Theodore, 



i6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

flung open its gates : at Man6f the faction in 
revolt plundered the house of Aristomachus, the 
imperial governor, and those of the leading Romans ; 
and nearly every Prefect and every town cast in its 
lot against Phocas : so that after a triumphant 
progress Bonakis returned to the capital. Only at 
Sebennytus or Samanud Paul, the popular Prefect, 
stood to his colours, and Paul's friend Cosmas, 
blazing with courage, though crippled with paralysis, 
was carried about the town to fire the garrison with 
his own spirit ; while at Athrlb ^ another friend of 
Paul, the Prefect Marcian, equally refused to join the 
rebellion. The war was not yet over. 

^ SamanM is still a well-known town on the eastern main of the 
Nile, about half way between Damietta and the head of the Delta. 
Athrib lay on the same branch of the river and flourished as late as 
the fourteenth century : its site is near where the railway now 
crosses the Nile by Banhd al 'Asal. From Athrib a canal ran 
westward to Manuf, and thence, following a north-westerly course, 
to Nikiou, which lay on the western or Bolbitic main. The 
position of both Manftf and Nikiou is quite wrongly given by 
D'Anville ; but Quatremere, in a learned note, proves by a brilliant 
piece of demonstration both the identity of Nikiou with Pshati — the 
one being the Greek, the other the Coptic name of the town — and 
the position of Nikiou on the Nile. Quatremere's conclusions 
are entirely borne out by John of Nikiou's Chronicle, which of 
course he had not seen. They are also confirmed by the MS. of 
Severus of Ushmiinain, who in the life of the Patriarch Andronicus 
expressly and explicitly identifies the two places. It may be added 
that both the forms Nakyfis and Ibshadi are found in Arabic. 
The river or canal passing through Maniif is to-day called ' Bahr 
al Fara'finiah,' or 'Pharaonic River,' a name which records its 
great antiquity. Where this stream joins the western Nile, there 
is an island called Tabshir, or a place called Tabshir with an 
island opposite. About six miles north of Tabshir, lies the village 
retaining the ancient Coptic name * Ash Shadi ' or * Ibshadi.' It 
seems, however, that as not unfrequently has happened, the ancient 
name does not mark the ancient site, but has been transferred to 
another settlement. For the modern hamlet called Ibshadi reveals 



Struggle for Egypt 17 

Bonosus had reached Caesarea when he heard 
of the fall of Alexandria. The news only stung 
him to fiercer action. Shipping his whole force at 
that port, he sailed swiftly southwards, and either 
landed his cavalry on the confines of Egypt or was 
met there by a body of horse from Palestine. His 
plan was now to relieve Athrib ; and for this purpose 
he took his fleet In two divisions, one by the main 
eastern branch of the Nile, and one by the Peluslac 
channel, while the cavalry followed by land. Besides 
the Prefect Marcian there was at Athrib a redoubt- 
able lady named Chrlstodora, who from motives of 
private vengeance was a strong supporter of the 
Emperors Interest. Paul and Cosmas also had 
come from Manuf to a council of war. In vain the 
Bishop of Nlklou and the Chancellor Menas wrote 
urging Marcian and Chrlstodora to throw down the 
statues of Phocas and acknowledge Heraclius : for 

not the slightest trace of antiquity. The name extended to the 
whole district or 'island of Nikiou' originally, and has lingered 
on in a village of no importance. Mrs. Butcher in her Story pf the 
Church of Egypt identifies the site of Nikiou with the modern 
Zawiah Raztn. Here are desolate mounds of potsherds, uneven 
ground, fragments of enormous granite columns, and all the tokens 
of a vanished Egyptian city. But geographically Zawtah Razin 
occupies the wrong position, lying South-east of Man^if, near 
Tarranah and entirely away from the ancient canal which joined 
Maniif to the Nile. The place which Quatrem^re calls Tabshir is 
given as Sabsir or Shabshir on modern maps, and in the latter 
form one may well discover an echo of the early Coptic form 
Pshati. It is a great pity, however, that both Shabshir and Zawiah 
Raztn, like so many ancient sites in the Delta, have been totally 
neglected by archaeologists. But I have no hesitation in pro- 
nouncing with Quatremere in favour of Shabshir. I may add that 
in using the form* Nikiou I am following the Coptic niKiov rather 
than the Greek NtKtov or the Arabic (j^y^> Nikiou was of course 
a Roman station : it is mentioned in the liinerarium Antonini, 

BUTLER C 



i8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

they heard of Bonosus' arrival on the isthmus, and 
the report was soon followed by the news of his 
occupation of Pelusium. His advance was watched 
in alarm by the Heraclian generals Plato and 
Theodore (really these Theodores are interminable), 
who had an army in the neighbourhood of Athrib. 
They sent an urgent message for succour to Bonakis, 
who lost no time in moving up the western or 
Bolbitic branch of the Nile ; but he reached Nikiou 
only to learn of Bonosus' arrival at Athrib. Quit- 
ting that town, Bonosus moved by the canal which 
branched off the main river westwards in the direc- 
tion of Manuf, and with him were Marcian and 
Cosmas and the relentless Christodora. 

Paul now directed his march to join Bonosus, 
and the two imperial forces had hardly united, 
when the army of Bonakis arrived on the scene. 
The encounter was fierce but decisive. The rebel 
troops were completely routed — part hurled into 
the waterway, part slain, part taken prisoner and 
thrown into irons. Bonakis himself was captured 
alive, but put to death : another general, Leontius, 
met the same fate : while Plato and Theodore 
managed to escape, and sought sanctuary in a 
neighbouring monastery. Nikiou, though a forti- 
fied city, was in no position to hold out against the 
victorious army of Bondsus. Accordingly Bishop 
Theodore and the Chancellor Menas went out to 
the conqueror in solemn procession, carrying gospels 
and crosses, and threw themselves on his mercy. 
They might better have thrown themselves from 
their city walls. Menas was cast into prison, fined 
3,000 pieces of gold, tortured with a prolonged 
bastinade, and set free only to die of exhaustion : 
while Theodore was taken back to Nikiou by 



Struggle for Egypt 19 

Bonosus, who now moved there with his army. At . 
the city gate Bon6sus saw the statues of Phocas 
lying broken on the ground, the work of the bishop, 
as Christodora and Marcian testified ; and the un- 
fortunate Theodore was instantly beheaded. This 
execution was followed by that of the generals Plato 
and Theodore, and of the three elders of Manuf — 
Isidore, John, and Julian — all of whom had sought 
asylum in a monastery, and were tamely surrendered 
by the monks. Of the general body of prisoners 
Bonosus merely banished those who had been in 
Maurice's- service, but put to death all who had 
ever borne arms under the flag of Phocas. 

The tide of war has now fairly turned in favour 
of the reigning Emperor. Bonosus was virtually 
master of the Delta, from all parts of which the 
rebel forces — afraid to fight and afraid to surrender 
— streamed towards Alexandria by the vast network 
of waterways which covered the country. For 
Bonosus himself it was an easy passage from Nikiou 
down the western main of the Nile, and thence by 
the canal which ran to Alexandria. 

Nicetas was well prepared to receive him. Within 
the city he had organized a large army of regulars 
and irregulars, sailors and citizens, aided warmly by 
the Green Faction. The arsenals rang with the 
din of forging weapons, and . the walls were manned 
and furnished with powerful engines of defence. 
Paul seems to have been sent on by Bonosus to 
attack the city with a fleet of vessels on the south 
side, probably at the point where the fresh-water 
canal entered through two enormous gateways of 
stone, which had been built and fortified by Tatian 
in the time of Valens. But as soon as Paul's flotilla 
came within range of the city batteries, the huge 

c 2 



20 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

stones which they hurled fell crashing among his 
vessels with such deadly effect that he was unable 
even to approach the walls, and drew off his ships 
to save them from being disabled or sunk. Such 
was the force at that time of the Alexandrian 
artillery. 



CHAPTER III 

FAILURE OF BONOSUS 

Route of Bonosus. He attacks Alexandria. His repulse and 
defeat. Action of Paul. Attempted assassination of Nicetas. 
Recapture of Nikiou. Bonosus driven from Egypt, and the 
country conquered for Heraelius. State of religious parties in 
Egypt. 

Bonosus, who had performed at any rate the last 
stages of his journey by land, seems nevertheless 
to have followed Cleopatra's canal, i. e. the principal 
waterway leading from the Bolbitic branch of the 
Nile to Alexandria. He first pitched his camp at 
Mipham6mis, and next at Dimkartani, according to 
the bishop s Chronicle. Zotenberg has no note on 
these places, and at first sight they are puzzling. 
But Miphamomis is called in the text * the present 
Shtabra/ This must be the Shtabri by Damanhtir. 
Now Champollion speaks of a place called Momem- 
phis ^, which he alleges to have been seven leagues 
west of Damanhur, or Timenh6r, as he gives the 
name of the town in its ancient Egyptian form. 
We can have no hesitation in identifying Mipha- 
momis with Momemphis and in placing it close to 
Damanhtir : but then Champollion cannot be right 
in identifying it with Panouf Khet, which the Arabs 
called Manuf as Safll, and which the French savant 
places twenty-one miles — an impossible distance — 
from Damanhur. 

As to Dimkartani, one cannot remember any such 
form elsewhere : but bearing in mind that Dim — or 
Tim — in ancient Egyptian was a regular prefix de- 
^ Strabo also speaks of the nome of Momemphis. 



22 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

noting ^ town/ it seems beyond doubt that Dimkartani 
is merely a Coptic form of Chaereum or Karitin^. 
This explanation fits accurately with the geography 
of that region ; for Kariftn was not only further west 
on the canal which Bonosus was following, as the 
context requires, but was nearly half-way between 
Damanht^r and Alexandria, being only thirty-eight 
kilometres from the latter city and thirty-one from 
Damanhur. From Karitin Bonosus covered the 
remaining distance without opposition, and arriving 
on the eastern side of the capital, he halted his army 
within view of the walls and resolved to assault 
them on the following day, Sunday. It would be 
interesting could we know by what means he hoped 
to storm the lofty and powerful fortifications which 
guarded the Great City 2. 

But the Alexandrians were in no mood to stand 
a siege. The story is that a certain saint of Upper 
Egypt, called Theophilus the Confessor — who lived 
on the top of a pillar, and there, it seems, acquired 
practical wisdom — counselled Nicetas to sally out 
and give battle. Accordingly he marshalled his 
troops within the * Gate of Aun,' where the splendid 
width of the great street dividing the city lengthwise 
gave plenty of room for the muster. The name 
' Gate of Aun ' is not explained by Zotenberg, and 
at first sight does not connect with any known 
feature in Alexandrian topography. But in another 

^ It is strange that this explanation did not occur to Amdlineau, 
who referring to this passage in his Geographie Copte (p. 139) 
conjectures that the place was a village outside Alexandria — a sort 
of suburb. 

2 It may here be noted that in all the writings of this time 
Alexandria is almost invariably called the Great City. Constantinople 
in contrast is sometimes called the Royal City. 



Failure of Bonosus 23 

passage of the MS. we find Aun used as a synonym 
of *Ain Shams. Now *AIn Shams Is the Arabic 
name for the town better known as Hellopolis : and 
the ancient Egyptian for HeliopoHs is On or Aon. 
The Gate of Atin is therefore the gate towards 
HeliopoHs, which may further be identified with 
the well-known Sun Gate closing the eastern end, 
as the Moon Gate closed the western, of that broad 
avenue which ran east to west in Alexandria, and 
was crossed at a sort of Carfax by the other main 
avenue running north to south. It may be added 
that the preference for old Egyptian forms shown in 
this use of Aiin, and in other passages, is a strong 
indication that John of Nikiou wrote this part of the 
original in Coptic. 

But to resume. The imperial forces were now 
ordered to advance against the city, a mounted 
general leading the way. While they were still far 
out of bowshot, they were harassed by a lively fire* 
from the huge catapults roaring and creaking on the 
city walls and towers. One of these projectiles 
struck the general, smashing his jaw, unhorsing and 
killing him instantly : a second killed another officer: 
and as the assailants wavered, thrown into confusion 
by this dreaded artillery, Nicetas gave the order for 
a sortie. The Sun Gate was thrown open, and his 
main force issued thence, formed line, and by a 
brilliant charge broke the enemy's ranks, and after 
a sharp struggle cut Bonosus army In two and 
turned it to flight. When Nicetas saw that most 
of the fugitives were streaming northwards, he put 
himself at the head of his reserve of black troops, 
and sallied out from another gate by the church 
of St. Mark on the north or seaward side of the city, 
near the north-east angle of the walls. He soon 



24 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

headed off the flying soldiers and drove them back 
either under the ramparts, where they were over- 
whelmed by volleys of stones and arrows, or else 
among the prickly hedges which enclosed the sub- 
urban gardens, where they were entangled and slain. 
Those of Bonosus men who fled to their left, or 
southwards, soon found their way barred by the 
canal in front : behind they saw the swords of their 
pursuers flashing : and, maddened by the press and 
panic, they turned their weapons blindly one against 
another. 

The army of Bonosus was cut to pieces. Marcian* 
Prefect of Athrib, Leontius, Valens and many notable 
persons were among the slain ; and such was the 
effect of the victory that even the Blue Faction 
abandoned the cause of Phocas. But Bonosus him- 
self managed to escape and retreat to the fortress 
of Karitan, a place which figures again some thirty 
years later in the advance of the Arabs under *Amr 
on Alexandria. It lay on both banks of the canal 
which connected the capital with the Nile. Ibn 
Haukal describes it in his day as a large and 
beautiful town surrounded by gardens, and it still 
survives as a village. What Paul and his flotilla 
were doing during the battle is uncertain. They 
may have been making a diversion towards the 
south-west of the city, but they do not seem to have 
been near the scene of the encounter either to aid 
in the fight by land or to rescue survivors. 

When at length Paul heard of this crushing defeat, 
he thought seriously of surrendering and joining 
Nicetas ; but he remained loyal to his party, and 
secured his retreat by some means to Karitan, where 
he joined Bonosus. That general — whose extra- 
ordinary resource and courage challenge our reluctant 



Failure of Bonosus 5a 

admiration — had no thought of abandoning the 
struggle. He passed rapidly by the canal to the 
western main of the Nile and ascended the stream 
to Nikiou, which his troops still garrisoned. There 
he recruited his fleet, and, after destroying a vast 
number of Alexandrian vessels, he succeeded in 
dominating the river. But not being strong enough 
to confront Nicetas again, he passed down another 
waterway (probably that called Ar Rugashat) towards 
Mareotis, and entered the Dragon Canal on the west 
of Alexandria with the intention of seizing Mareotis 
as a fresh base of operations against the capital. 
But Nicetas received intelligence of his plan, and 
defeated it by sending to break down the bridge 
at a place called Dafashtr, near Mareotis, and so 
blocking the canaL 

Furious with this check, Bonosus, renouncing the 
methods of open warfare, resolved to assassinate his 
rival. He persuaded one of his soldiers to go as an 
envoy to Nicetas under pretence of arranging terms 
of surrender. * Take a short dagger with you,* he 
said, * and conceal it under your cloak. When you 
come close to Nicetas, drive it through his heart, so 
as to kill him on the spot. You may escape in the 
confusion ; but if not, you will die to save the 
Empire, and I will take charge of your children at 
the royal palace and will provide for them for life.' 
Such was the plot of Bonosus ; but it was betrayed 
by a traitor. One of his own followers named John 
sent a message of warning to Nicetas ; so that when 
the assassin appeared, he was at once surrounded 
by a guard, who searched him and found the hidden 
dagger. The weapon was used to behead him. 

Thus baulked of his vengeance, Bonosus marched 
by land to Dafashlr, and wreaked his spite by 



26 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

massacring the inhabitants. Nicetas was hurrying 
to meet him : but Bon6sus knew the folly of risking 
a battle with the diminished remnant of his force. 
He therefore retreated, crossed the Nile, and once 
more gained the shelter of Nikiou. Instead of 
passing the river to pursue him, Nicetas remained 
on the western side, and occupied the town and 
province of Mareotis with a considerable army. 
The desperate valour of his foe and the baffling 
rapidity of his movements still gave the general 
of Heraclius much cause for anxiety, and he met 
his daring tactics with calculating prudence. It 
was not till Nicetas had firmly secured his rear and 
the western bank of the Nile that he passed over 
the river and advanced on Manuf. Here there was 
a very strong fortress — one of the great works of 
Trajan — which might have held out for an indefinite 
time if vigorously defended. But it is clear that 
popular sympathy was with the revolting party, and 
that the imperial soldiers were losing heart, in spite 
of the undaunted prowess of their leader. Many of 
the garrison took to flight, and the citadel itself was 
taken after a feeble resistance. 

Having thus mastered the country on both banks 
of the Nile, Nicetas advanced on the town of Nikiou, 
which he had caught in a vice. At length the 
indomitable spirit of Bonosus was broken. He fled 
under cover of darkness, and either slipped past the 
besieging army eastward and got to Athrib, or else 
dropped quickly down the main river, and then 
crossed by one of the innumerable canals towards 
Tanis. In either case he reached Pelusium in 
safety, and took ship to Palestine : whence under the 
execration of the people he passed on his way to 
Constantinople, and joined his master Phocas. The 



Failure of Bonosus 27 

fall of Mantaf and NIkiou was the signal for the 
surrender of the other imperial towns and generals. 
Paul, Prefect of Samanud, and the vigorous cripple 
Cosmas were captured, but frankly pardoned by the 
conqueror : and the Green Faction, who had made 
the occasion of Nicetas* success an excuse for mal- 
treating the Blues and for open pillage and murder, 
saw their leaders arrested and solemnly admonished 
to be on their good behaviour. The two Factions 
were actually reconciled : new governors were ap- 
pointed to every town : law and order were re-estab- 
lished : and Heraclius was master of Egypt. 

It had been a long and a desperate struggle, with 
a romantic ebb and flow of fortune. We have seen 
the country roused from its sullen torpor by the 
sound of Heraclius' . trumpets : Nicetas capturing 
Alexandria almost without striking a blow, and the 
revolution triumphant through Egypt : then Bon6sus 
flinging himself like a tiger on the head of the Delta, 
sweeping all before him to the walls of Alexandria, 
and dashing against the city's bulwarks only to recoil 
crushed and disabled for any further contest save 
a guerilla warfare, which he maintained for a time 
with fiery courage ; then, brought to bay at last, he 
cheated the enemies that surrounded him of their 
vengeance and stole away in the night. It is a 
remarkable picture, drawn in strong colours, but 
bearing in every detail the image of reality; it is 
one entirely unknown to history until revealed in 
the Chronicle of John of Nikiou. 

For not a word of all this dramatic struggle in 
Egypt occurs in the Byzantine historians, except 
that the Chronicon Paschale speaking of 609 a. d. 
says, ' Africa and Alexandria revolt.' Gibbon, who 



28 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

knows every page of their writings, thus sums up 
what he gleaned from them about the revolution : 
* The powers of Africa were armed by the two 
adventurous youths (Heraclius and Nicetas) ; they 
agreed that one should navigate the fleet from 
Carthage to Constantinople, that the other should 
lead an army through Egypt and Asia, and that the 
imperial purple should be the reward of diligence 
and success. A faint rumour of their undertaking 
was conveyed to the ears of Phocas, and the wife 
and mother of the younger Heraclius were secured 
as the hostages of his faith : but the treacherous art 
of Crispus extenuated the distant peril, the means of 
defence were neglected or delayed, and the tyrant 
supinely slept till the African navy cast anchor in 
the Hellespont.' There is no suspicion here of the 
part played by Egypt in the revolution. Indeed 
a few pages later in the same chapter ^, Gibbon, in 
treating of the Persian invasion of Egypt under 
Chosroes in 6i6 a. d., expressly speaks of that 
country as * the only province which had been 
exempt, since the time of Diocletian, from foreign 
and domestic war': an extraordinary statement, 
which Gibbon in part demolishes in his own brief 
but vigorous account of the Copts in the following 
chapter. The truth is that the more one studies 
this period, the clearer it becomes that Egypt was 
one of the most restless and turbulent countries in 
the whole Empire, and, certainly since the Council 
of Chalcedon, was in an almost chronic state of 
disorder. There is abundant evidence of this not 
only within the wide range of the Chronicle of John 
of Nikiou but in Renaudot's well-known History of 
the Patriarchs of Alexandria and in other writings, 

^ Ch. xlvi. 



Failure of Bonosus 29 

apart from the particular story of Heraclius, with 
which we are now dealing. 

This is not the place for a discussion upon either 
the facts or the sources of Egyptian history during 
the last two centuries of the Empire : but when 
that record comes to be fully written, it will prove 
a record of perpetual feud between Romans and 
Egyptians — a feud of race and a feud of religion — 
in which, however, the dominating motive was rather 
religious than racial. The key to the whole of this 
epoch is the antagonism between the Monophysites 
and the Melkites. The latter, as the name implies, 
were the imperial or the Court party in religion, 
holding the orthodox opinion about the two natures 
of Christ : but this opinion the Monophysite Copts, 
or native Egyptians, viewed with an abhorrence and 
combated with a frenzy difficult to understand in 
rational beings, not to say followers of the Gospel ^. 

* Nor were the Monophysites without their own divisions. 
Witness the curious contest between Theodosius, the man of 
letters, and Gaian the Copt, for the Jacobite Patriarchate in the 
early sixth century, when the monks were all for Gaian, and 
though Theodosius got the start of him in performing the vigil 
at St. Mark's Cathedral and securing his investiture with the 
pallium, yet the people rose and drove him from the throne. But 
no sooner was Gaian seated, than Theodora dispatched Narses 
to depose him and to restore Theodosius. Popular tumults 
followed and sanguinary encounters in the streets of Alexandria, 
as the whole city rose, the very women hurling tiles from the 
housetops on the head of the alien soldiers battling in the streets. 

In the time of Justin I, civil war was waged for years between 
one party who held that the body of Christ was corruptible and 
another who held it incorruptible. Justinian's appointment of 
Zoilus as Patriarch caused a rebellion in which the Roman troops 
were overpowered : and his device of making ApoUinarius at once 
Prefect and Patriarch of Alexandria occasioned a massacre, for 
which the bishop in armour gave the word from the altar, so 



30 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

The spirit of the savage fanatics who tore Hypatia 
to pieces at the altar was aHve and unchanged : 
only now instead of being directed against the 
supposed paganism of a young and beautiful woman, 
it was divided between two sects each of which 
called itself children of Christ, and called the other 
sons of Satan. But further, apart from all religious 
dissensions, though crossed and complicated by them, 
the strife of the Blue and the Green Factions was as 
real and as relentless on the banks of the Nile as in 
any part of the Empire. 

So much then for the domestic peace of Egypt at 
this period : and the alleged freedom from foreign 
war is disproved at least by the invasion of the 
Persians in the time of the Emperor Anastasius, 
when according to Eutychius, a writer born in 
Egypt, all the suburbs of Alexandria were burnt 
down, battle after battle was fought between the 
Persian invaders and the Egyptians, and the country 
was so harried that it escaped from the sword only 
to be smitten by a famine which led to insurrection. 
And what is to be said of the almost perennial 
persecutions and massacres, such as even Justinian 

that the church ran with the blood of his Coptic congregation. 
And though Justinian issued what was meant to be a reform- 
ing edict for Egypt, it was the edict of a tyrant for a people of 
slaves. 

John of Nikiou implies that the Gaianite faction was still in 
being at the time when he wrote. The Gaianite doctrine of the 
incorruptibility of Our Lord's body was gradually abandoned by 
the Copts, and the Theodosian doctrine of the natural body 
prevailed. Thus Le Quien quotes the superscription of a letter 
written by Khail, the forty-sixth Patriarch, as follows : * Khail by 
the Grace of God Bishop of the city of Alexandria and of the 
Theodosian people.' This would be in the eighth century of our 
era. Coptic documents of the seventh century have the same 
expression, and Severus identifies the Copts with the Theodosians. 



Failure of Bonosus 31 

must be said to have countenanced ? the petty rebel- 
lions, like that of Aristomachus under the Emperor 
Maurice ? the outbursts of organized brigandage, the 
Beduin raids, the continual alarms and incursions of 
the Sudan tribes, who then as now menaced the 
frontiers? If war was not often present in act, its 
phantom was always hovering in the mirage of the 
Egyptian horizon. 

It is clear, then, that many causes contributed to 
keep the whole province in a state of unrest. And 
the divisions were at once so fierce and so manifold 
that almost any determined invader might count on 
the aid of some party within its borders. What 
helped Nicetas was a genuine detestation of Phocas : 
the measure of his crimes was full even in the 
judgement of the Romans, while to the Copts he was 
not merely a tyrant and an assassin, but the sign 
and centre of that foreign power and that accursed 
creed, the existence of which in Egypt embittered 
their daily bread. But it is probable that, even 
after the flight of Bonosus, Nicetas felt his continued 
presence necessary to secure his authority. Un- 
fortunately the dates here are somewhat hard to 
follow. Apparently John of Nikiou makes all the 
war, previous to the defeat of Bonosus before Alex- 
andria, take place in the seventh year of Phocas' 
reign, i.e. before the close of 609 : the battle itself 
then would be about the end of November, 609 ^, 
and the subsequent events may have occupied a few 
weeks longer. Still it would follow that Nicetas 
was in possession of Egypt in the spring of 610. 

^ This agrees with the statement that John the Almoner 
was elected Patriarch in 609, in the room of Theodorus, 
who was killed in the revolt of Nicetas. See Le Quien, Or. 
Christ, ii. 444. 



32 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

On one point the bishop's Chronicle is curiously 
silent — on the part played in the contest by the 
powerful fortress of Babylon near Memphis. Next 
to Alexandria, it was the strongest place in Egypt, 
and of course it was held by an imperial garrison. 
In the war of the Arab conquest it was the first 
objective of the Saracen commander, and its reduc- 
tion sealed the triumph of the Crescent. This is so 
fully set forth by the Chronicle, that one can only in- 
terpret its silence to mean that Babylon surrendered 
to Nicetas without a conflict But if so, and if the 
war in Egypt was over by the spring of 6io, it is 
more than ever clear that Nicetas had no idea of 
racing for Constantinople. Else, assuming that he 
could have drawn an adequate armament from 
Egypt, which there is no reason to doubt, he might 
have reached the Byzantine capital and overthrown 
Phocas six months in advance of Heraclius. It is 
true that Cedrenus assigns the massacre by Bon6sus 
at Antioch to 6io, which would make the whole 
Egyptian war fall within that year : but this chrono- 
logy is not consistent with the rest of Cedrenus : 
it disagrees with the Chronicon Paschale : and it is 
hopelessly at variance with our Ethiopic MS., in 
which generally speaking the dates are remarkably 
trustworthy. The balance of evidence is then 
strongly in favour of the earlier date, and we may 
take it that Nicetas, having achieved the object of 
his mission, when he won the final throw of the die 
on the Nile, was well content to hold the province 
pending the advance of Heraclius, to keep central- 
ized and friendly all the imperial forces in the 
country, and to control its vast resources in corn 
and shipping on which Constantinople largely de- 
pended. 



CHAPTER IV 

ACCESSION OF HERACLIUS 

Heraclius' voyage. His long delay at Thessalonica. He sails 
for Constantinople. Fighting at the capital, and death of Bonosus. 
Naval engagement. Imperial treasure sunk in the sea. Phocas 
captured and confronted with Heraclius. Sentence of death carried 
out with barbarity. Coronation of Heraclius. Retrospect. 

Meanwhile how was Heraclius faring ? Our in- 
formation of his progress by sea is scanty enough, 
nor does John of NIkiou add greatly to the meagre 
details of the Byzantine historians, who, like him, 
reserve their descriptions for the closing scenes at 
Constantinople. But it is clear that the progress 
was slow, and that like Nicetas he set out with a 
comparatively small force of vessels, carrying some 
Roman and African troops on board, and that he 
had to collect and organize both a fleet and an 
army with which he might adventure against Phocas. 
At the islands where he touched, and at the towns 
on the seaboard, he was welcomed, and recruits — 
particularly of the Green ^ Faction — flocked to his 
standard. Of resistance to his arms there is no 
record : and yet it is certain that Heraclius never 
dreamt of moving direct on Constantinople with the 
small force with which he started. On quitting 
Africa he coasted along Hellas or threaded the 
islands slowly to Thessalonica, where he fixed his 
base of operations and spent a considerable time — 

* There seems some doubt about the part played by the two 
Factions. The Blue was originally for and the Green against 
Phocas: but he clearly alienated even the Blue. John of Nikiou's 
evidence on the whole goes to show that in Egypt it was the Greens, 
as in Thrace and Constantinople, who favoured Heraclius. 



34 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

not less than a year — In equipping a fleet and army 
and In strengthening his connexion with the disaffected 
party led by Crispus In the capital. Thessalonica was 
at this time, as we know, strongly fortified, and It 
was one of the few places In Macedonia which had 
withstood the hordes of Huns and other barbarians 
then flooding the country ^ It was In fact one of 
the gates of the Eastern Empire : It commanded the 
trade routes from Carthage, Sicily, and the western 
Mediterranean to Constantinople. Here then Hera- 
clius established himself presumably without a strug- 
gle, and so firmly that one writer, Eutychlus, appears 
to imagine him a native of the town. It must, 
however, be said that Eutychlus whole account of 
the revolution Is no less imperfect as a record of 
events than confused in chronology: and on this 
point he is clearly mistaken. 

During the many months which Heraclius spent 
at Thessalonica, we can only conceive of him as 
maturing plans, gathering resources, and removing 
obstacles. What difficulties he had to encounter 
we cannot say : It Is possible that at this period, 
which is a blank In the annals, he may have dis- 
played that combination of calculating foresight 
and brilliant activity with which he subsequently 
astonished the world in his Persian campaigns. But 
it was not till September, 6io, that all was ready, 

^ A very interesting description of Thessalonica is given in 
Joannis Comeniatae de Excidio Thessalonicensi Narratio which 
may be read in Combefisius' Historiae Byzantinae Scriptores Post 
Theophanem (Paris, 1685, fol. pp. 320 seq.). The general situation 
of the town is picturesquely sketched, and full details are given of 
the forts, walls, and harbours. The magnificence of the streets 
and buildings and the vastness of its trade, wealth, and resources 
are a tolerable index of the importance of the city to Heraclius. 
John wrote circa 900. 



Accession of Heraclius 35 

and the vast armament which he had collected and 
provisioned weighed anchor from the harbour. On 
the leading galleys reliquaries were carried, and the 
banner of the Cross waved at the mast-head : while 
on Heraclius' own vessel an image of special sanctity, 
* the image not made with hands,' formed the figure- 
head. News of the arrival of the fleet in the 
Dardanelles spread like wild-fire to the capital ; and 
while Crispus seems for the moment to have kept 
in the background, Theodore the Illustrious and a 
large number of senators and officials declared for 
Heraclius. According to John of Nikiou the city 
rabble also rose against the Emperor, hurling im- 
precations on his head. 

Phocas, meanwhile, seems to have been ill prepared 
for the storm that had been so long in breaking. 
When he first received news of the revolt of Egypt, 
there was a large fleet of corn-ships from Alexandria 
in harbour. These he seized, and flung the sailors 
into prison in the fortress on the harbour of the 
Hebdomon, where they were kept in long durance. 
Yet after the failure of Bonosus' expedition to re- 
conquer Egypt, we read of no further serious efforts 
on the Emperor's part. But it was the shout of 
these Alexandrian prisoners, as they acclaimed the 
sails of Heraclius, that sounded the first note of real 
alarm which was borne to Phocas. The Emperor 
was then at the Hebdomon palace ^ near the 
fortress : but he sprang on his horse and galloped 
to a palace called the palace of the Archangel 

^ The palace and fortress of the Hebdomon were on the coast 
about three miles west of the Golden Gate of Constantinople, as 
Prof. Van Millingen proves in his learned work Byzantine Con- 
stantinople, pp. 316-41 (London, 1899). The incident in the text 
is referred to on p. 324. 

D 2 



36 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

within the walls. From the Chronicon Paschale 
we know that this was on a Saturday ; which must 
have been the 3rd October. Next day Bonosus 
was sent with the imperial chariots and other 
troops to encounter any force landed by Heraclius : 
but the charioteers, who had been won over by 
Crispus, revolted and turned on their leader, who fled 
back, eating his heart with rage, to the city. There 
in a fit of savage treachery Bon6sus hurled fire 
into the quarter round the palace called Caesarion : 
but, failing to kindle a conflagration, he baflled for 
a while the pursuing mob, and escaped in a small 
boat to the quay called Port Julian. Here, however, 
he was followed and found, and the chase closed 
about him. He essayed a fierce but vain resistance 
against overwhelming odds : then in the last ex- 
tremity of danger he plunged into the sea. As he 
rose a sword-cut clove his skull, and that indignant 
spirit fled from the scene where it had wrought so 
much havoc. The body was taken out of the water 
and dragged to the Ox Market, where it was burned 
in public ignominy and execration. 

This account of the death of Bonosus is put 
together from the records of Cedrenus, John of 
Nikiou, and the Chronicon Paschale, It is curious 
how well they combine, and how little real disagree- 
ment there is between them ; for although the 
stories differ, it is rather by omission or addition 
than by any discrepancy of fact. Moreover the 
points of coincidence are often very striking; and 
as it is rather a coincidence of logic than of detail, 
it seems to establish at once the independence of 
the writers and to carry a conviction of their trust- 
worthiness. There is no sign of the three writers 
relying on any common document. 



Accession of Heraclius 37 

When the Emperor heard what had befallen 
Bonosus, he knew that his own hour had come. 
He had no intention of resigning the crown, nor 
indeed any hope of mercy in case he surrendered to 
his enemy : his only chance lay in fighting to the 
bitter end, and the defection of his best troops made 
this chance almost worthless. All he had now to 
rely upon was the allegiance of the Blue Faction, or 
rather their furious hostility to the Green and their 
exasperation at the first successes of the rival colour. 
Phocas accordingly manned a fleet with the Blues 
in the harbour of St. Sophia, and prepared to give 
battle to Heraclius. John of Niklou is responsible 
for a curious anecdote which, as far as I am aware, 
does not occur in any other historian. He relates 
that Phocas and his chamberlain or treasurer, Leon- 
tius the Syrian, knowing that after the death of 
Bonosus their own lives were in imminent danger 
from the mob, took all the hoarded wealth of the 
imperial treasury and sank it in the sea. All the 
riches of the Emperor Maurice, all the vast store of 
gold and jewels which Phocas himself had amassed 
by confiscating the property of the victims he had 
murdered, and last but not least all the money and 
precious vessels which Bonosus had heaped up by 
his multiplied iniquities, were now in a moment 
lost to the world. * Thus,' as the Egyptian bishop 
remarks, 'did Phocas impoverish the Eastern Empire.' 

It was an act of triumphant spite such as well 
accords with the character of the Emperor, and 
apparently it took place when victory declared for 
Heraclius in the naval engagement. The treasure 
must have been taken on board the Emperors 
galley, to save it from being plundered while the 
battle was raging, and sunk bodily when the battle 



38 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

was lost. For though the contest may have been 
stubborn, the issue was not doubtful. The imperial 
vessels were defeated and driven on the shore or 
captured. All who could, escaped, and fled for 
sanctuary to the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Phocas 
himself seems to have made his way back with 
Leontius to the palace of the Archangel, where 
they were followed and seized by Photius (or 
Photinus) and Probus. The crown was struck off 
the Emperor s head, and he was dragged with his 
companion in chains along the quay, his raiment torn 
to pieces. There he was shown to the victorious 
fleet and army, and with a storm of curses ringing 
in his ears, he was haled into the presence of his 
conqueror in the church of St. Thomas the Apostle. 

It is probable that this church was chosen for 
Heraclius' thanksgiving service rather than St. 
Sophia, because the latter was too crowded with 
refugees of the defeated Faction to admit of any 
large company or solemn pageant. There is no 
necessity to draw on the imagination for many details 
of the meeting between Phocas and Heraclius. We 
may picture a stately basilica thronged with officers, 
senators and soldiers, priests standing in gorgeous 
vestments round the altar laden with golden vessels, 
and the strains of the Te Deum dying away as 
Phocas is brought in chains. 

For a moment the fallen Emperor and his vic- 
torious vassal stand fronting each other. Their por- 
traits are well known as drawn by Cedrenus. Hera- 
clius was in the prime of life — his age was about 
thirty-five — of patrician family, of middle stature and 
muscular build, deep-chested, with well-knit athletic 
frame : his hair and beard were fair, his complexion 
bright and clear, his eyes pale blue and singularly 



Accession of Heracltus 39 

handsome. Altogether a man of frank and open 
presence and aristocratic mien, with a look of power, 
physical and intellectual : a face denoting courage, 
insight, ability, and perhaps that unscrupulous- 
ness which Eutychius commemorates. Phocas was 
of the same height : but there the resemblance 
ended. His person was repulsive from its hideous 
deformity : his beardless face was crossed by a deep 
and ugly scar which flushed and blackened in his fits 
of passion : his jutting eyebrows met on a low fore- 
head under a shock of red hair, and the eyes of a 
savage glared beneath them. Foul of tongue, be- 
sotted in wine and lust, ruthless and remorseless in 
torture and bloodshed — such was the ex-centurion 
whose lash had scourged the Eastern Empire for 
eight years, and who now was called to answer for 
his deeds. As crime after crime was unfolded, * Is 
this,' said Heraclius, * the way you have governed ? ' 
* Are you the man,' was the retort, * to govern better ? ' 
Sentence of death was passed, and it is a reproach 
rather to the manners of the time than to the 
character of Heraclius that its execution was accom- 
panied by horrible barbarities — though perhaps not 
much worse than the drawing and quartering which 
our own law formerly sanctioned. Phocas body was 
dismembered : first the hands and feet were cut off, 
then the arms, and after other mutilations the head 
at last was severed, put on a pole, and carried about 
the main streets of the city. Meanwhile the trunk 
was dragged along the ground to the Hippodrome, 
and thence to the Ox Market, and burned on the 
spot where Bonosus' ashes were hardly cold. The 
banner of the Blue Faction (not the Green, as 
Gibbon says) was also burned, and a statue of 
Phocas was carried through the Hippodrome in 



40 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

mock procession by men clad in white dalmatics 
and bearing lighted tapers, and was thrown on the 
fire. ' They burned Phocas, Leontius, and Bonosus 
and scattered their ashes to the winds : for all men 
hated them/ 

According to John of Nikiou, Heraclius was 
crowned — against his own wishes — in the same 
church of St. Thomas; and after his prayer was 
ended, he repaired to the palace, where all the dig- 
nitaries of the city rendered him homage. Cedrenus 
makes the imperial coronation take place in the 
chapel of St. Stephen attached to the palace, while 
the Chronicon Paschale puts it out of order between 
the burning of Phocas body and his statue, naming 
no place. It is curious that the Egyptian chronicle 
confirms the story of Heraclius' reluctance to accept 
the crown — a reluctance emphasized by the Chroni- 
con Paschale as well as the Byzantine historians. 
But his scruples were overcome : and on October 5 
in the year 6ro he was proclaimed Emperor, with 
Fabia, his betrothed wife, whose name was changed 
to Eudocia, as Empress. 

Nicetas does not seem to have made any effort to 
join Heraclius before Constantinople : for though 
John of Nikiou uses language apparently implying 
his presence in the city at the time of Phocas fall, 
Zotenberg must be right in thinking that * Nicetas ' 
there is a mere slip on the part of writer or copyist 
for ' Crispus.' The fact of Nicetas leaving Egypt 
to join forces with Heraclius, and succeeding in his 
object, would not have been buried, if it were a fact, 
in the obscurity of a chance allusion. But I must 
again differ from Gibbon, who says : — 

' The voyage of Heraclius had been easy and 
prosperous, the tedious march of Nicetas was not 



Accession of Heraclius 41 

accomplished before the decision of the contest : but 
he submitted without a murmur to the fortune of his 
friend/ 

The truth, as I have shown, is just the reverse. 
It was Nicetas' march which on the whole was easy 
and prosperous : and in spite of the dangers and 
delays arising from the intervention of Bonosus, 
he reached his final goal, the possession of Egypt, 
long before Heraclius was able to move from 
Thessalonica. From which it is fair to argue that 
Heraclius in his voyage had difficulties and ad- 
versities to master, of which we have no record 
and no measure. 



CHAPTER V 

EGYPT UNDER THE NEW EMPEROR 

Nicetas remains as Governor of Alexandria. His policy. Gap 
in the history of Egypt. Our dependence on patriarchal biographies. 
John the Almoner and the great famine. Corn-ships belonging to 
the Church. Succession of Coptic Patriarchs. 

Nicetas was confirmed by the Emperor in the 
governorship of Alexandria or, as it might be called, 
the Viceroyalty of Egypt \ The adherents of Phocas 
had now been killed or banished, or had thrown off 
their allegiance to the lost cause, and the chief work 
of Nicetas was the resettlement of the Roman civil 
service and the reorganization of the Roman military 
service, which between them held Egypt in fee for 
the Empire. Both these services were filled by the 
ruling class to the general exclusion of the Copts 
or natives, and the system was so far analogous 
to the British administration of India : it differed 
profoundly and fatally in this, that the whole 
machinery of government in Egypt was directed 
to the sole purpose of wringing profit out of the 
ruled for the benefit of the rulers. There was no 
idea of governing for the advantage of the governed, 
of raising the people in the social scale, of developing 
the moral or even the material resources of the 
country. It wa.s an alien domination founded on 
force and making little pretence of sympathy with 
the subject race. It held the Greek capital of 
Alexandria and the ancient Egyptian capital of 

^ There is a good note on Nicetas in H. Gelzer's Leontios' von 
Neapolis Leben des heiligen Johannes, p. 129. 



Egypt under the new Emperor 43 

Memphis, with Its great bulwark the Roman fortress 
of Babylon on the eastern side of the Nile, and 
from Syene to Pelusium it occupied a chain of 
fortress towns. From these its soldiers and tax- 
gatherers patrolled the country, keeping order and 
collecting money, while Roman merchants and Jewish 
traders settled freely under protection of the garrisons, 
keenly competing with their Coptic rivals. 

Alexandria itself was as difficult a city to govern 
as any in the world with its motley population of 
Byzantine Greeks, Greeks born in Egypt, Copts, 
Syrians, Jews, Arabs, and aliens of all nations. 
Yet Nicetas seems really to have won the respect, 
if not the affection, of the fickle and turbulent 
Alexandrians. One of his first measures was to 
grant a three years' remission of the imperial taxes, 
an act of singular favour, which heightened the 
popularity already gained by his record as a brilliant 
soldier. That he remained at Alexandria is no 
longer open to question \ True, we hear of him 
at Jerusalem before the Persian advance to that 
city, where Jie is said to have saved some of the 
holy relics — the spear and the sponge — from capture : 
but as we shall see he returned to Alexandria again. 

^ This is quite clear from Leontius and other sources. But the 
fact of Nicetas' governorship of Alexandria seems unknown even 
to Professor Bury, who apparently follows Gibbon in thinking that 
Nicetas was still bent on marching his hapless forces all the way 
by land to Constantinople, through Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and 
Asia Minor ; for he says that Nicetas ' did not arrive in Con- 
stantinople till about April, 612. We know not what detained him 
on bis journey : but it may be conjectured that he lingered in Syria 
to operate against the Persians' {History of the Later Roman 
Empire, vol. ii. p. 216, n. 2). The story of the landward race to 
Constantinople is pure legend. Nicetas' destination was Egypt, 
and he remained there to govern the country he had conquered for 
Heraclius. 



44 ' The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

The fact doubtless is that Heraclius ordered him 
to Palestine in hope that he might offer an effectual 
resistance to the Persian armies, whose numbers 
and strength he greatly under-estimated ; and that 
Nicetas had no alternative but to beat a hasty 
retreat. 

But here most unfortunately the history of Egypt 
is extremely difficult to recover. The annals of John 
of Nikiou, which up to this point have furnished a 
wealth of information, now become totally silent. 
There is in the MS. a blank of thirty years, just 
as if some malignant hand had torn out every page 
on which the record of the reign of Heraclius 
was written. Some Armenian ^ and other eastern 
authorities who deal with this period throw much 
light upon the history of some parts of the Empire : 
but, like the Byzantine historians, they have little 
to say on the subject of Egypt. Yet dimly through 
the gloom one may mark the movement of those 
great events which at the close of the Emperor's 
life closed the book of Byzantine overlordship in 
Egypt. 

In tracing the story of Egypt during the thirty 
years between the accession of Heraclius and the 
Arab conquest we are mainly dependent on eccle- 
siastical writers or writers with a strong religious 
bias. The truth is that in the seventh century in 
Egypt the interest of politics was quite secondary 
to the interest of religion. It was opinion on 
matters of faith, and not on matters of government, 
which formed and divided parties in the state ; and 
religion itself was valued rather for its requirement 
of intellectual assent to certain propositions than 

^ For a list of Armenian authorities see Journal Asiatique^ 6® 
s^rie, 1866, vol. vii. p. 109. 



Egypt under the new Emperor 45 

for its power to furnish the springs of moral 
action. Love of country was practically unknown, 
and national or racial antagonisms derived their 
acuteness mainly from their coincidence with religious 
differences. Men debated with fury upon shadows 
of shades of belief and staked their lives on the 
most immaterial Issues, on the most subtle and 
intangible refinements in the formulas of theology 
or metaphysics. And the .fierce battles which 
Juvenal describes as turning In his day on the 
relative merit of cats or crocodiles as objects of 
worship found their analogue In Christian Egypt : — 

Numina vicinorum 
Odit uterque locus, cum solos credat habendos 
Esse deos quos ipse colit. 

Times had changed, but the temper of the people 
was the same. Inasmuch then as parties and party 
divisions were essentially sectarian. It Is rather the 
lives of saints and patriarchs than those of warriors 
or statesmen, which have survived to furnish the 
sources of Egyptian history. 

The resulting difficulties are not lessened by the 
fact that at this time, as ever since the Council of 
Chalcedon in 451, each of the two great parties into 
which the Church was cloven had its own separate 
Patriarch and administration. These parties, It may 
be repeated, are distinguished by the familiar names 
Jacobite or Coptic and Melklte ^ or Royalist. The 
Jacobites were by creed Monophysltes, by race 
mainly, though not exclusively, native Egyptians 



2 . 



^ The root ' melek ' signifying king is common to all Semitic 
languages. The term Melkite as employed in Egypt probably 
came from the Syriac, so that there is no anachronism in using it 
before the Arab conquest. 

2 The importance of the Copts even in Alexandria is shown by 



46 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

while the Melkites were orthodox followers of 
Chalcedon and for the most part of Greek or 
European origin. Severus of Ushmianain and all 
the authorities agree that, whatever Emperor 
reigned, the policy of suppressing the Jacobite 
heresy in Egypt was pursued with relentless in- 
tolerance : while the Jacobites aimed no less at 
extirpating all that stood in the following of 
Chalcedon. 

It has already been shown that the Melkite 
Patriarch, who was called Theodorus, was slain at the 
capture of Alexandria by Nicetas in 609^. The 
revolt of Heraclius was directed against the imperial 
power at Constantinople, and in joining it the 
Copts doubtless hoped for better treatment than 
they had received under the iron rule of Phocas. 

a story in Procopius (Athens, 1896, p. 221). When Justinian 
in 538 made Paul bishop of Alexandria, he gave him authority 
over the governor Rhodon, hoping thus to secure obedience to 
Chalcedon from the chief men of the city. Paul's first act was to 
deliver to death the deacon Psoes, a Copt who wrote Coptic and 
was the main hindrance to the Emperor's policy. Psoes died under 
torture : the people rose in fury : and to pacify them Justinian 
recalled Rhodon and had him executed at Constantinople in spite 
of the thirteen dispatches, ordering him to obey the Patriarch, 
which he produced in self-defence. Liberius, who succeeded 
Rhodon as governor of Alexandria, proceeded to crucify one 
Arsenius who had been a principal agent in the death of Psoes ; 
so that the latter was fully avenged. Le Quien makes out that 
it was Rhodon who originated the order to murder Psoes : but his 
bias in favour of the Court party is as clear as Procopius' testimony 
against the Patriarch Paul. 

* Sharpe is mistaken in saying that Theodore was bishop ' during 
the first three years of Heraclius ' : History of Egypt under the 
Romans^ p. 240. The Chronicon Paschale says that in this year the 
Pope of Alexandria '■ was slain by his enemies ' {fj^a^^rai omh 
evavTioiv — which may mean the Copts) i. e. 609, in which year also 
Zacharias was made Patriarch of Jerusalem. 



Egypt under the new Emperor 47 

Nor at first were they greatly disappointed. The 
Coptic Patriarch Anastasius, who had been on the 
throne for ^v^ years at the time of the rebelHon, 
retained his seat for another six years till his death 
on 22 Khoiak (18 Dec.),A. d. 616 \ And although 
the Melkites remained in possession of power and 
held the principal churches in Alexandria, yet the 
Copts were able to build or rebuild several churches 
of their own, such as those of St. Michael, St. 
Angelus, SS. Cosmas and Damian, besides various 
monasteries, to all of which Anastasius appointed 
priests and ordained bishops 2. 

There seems no reason to doubt that Heraclius 
was genuinely anxious to win over the Coptic party, 
and at the same time Nicetas felt bound to re- 
compense their services rendered. Hence although 
the Byzantine Court still appointed a Melkite 
Patriarch in place of the slain Theodorus, they 

^ This on the whole seems the most probable date, though here 
as elsewhere the chronology is extremely difficult. Abti '1 Birkat 
makes Anastasiqs die in 604 : the Chronicon Orieniale assigns his 
death to 611, after a primacy of 12 years and 190 days: while 
Echellensis claims greater accuracy in dating him 607 to 619. But 
on the one hand the Chronicon expressly states that the reception 
of the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch by Anastasius occurred in the 
year in which the Persians devastated Jerusalem, i. e. in 6iy : and 
on the other hand we know from Severus that the Persian invasion 
of Egypt (which happened in 616) took place after the death of 
Anastasius. Both statements may be reconciled with the date given 
in the text for the death of Anastasius, viz. December, 616, although 
the Chronicon is inconsistent with itself in putting the decease of 
Anastasius in the year 611. See Appendix B, where all this 
chronology is discussed at more length. 

^ Severus of Ushmunain quoted by Le Quien, Or. Christ, ii. 444. 
The Chronicon Orieniale goes further in saying that Anastasius not 
only built new churches, but restored to the Copts many of which 
the Melkites had taken possession. This could only be by the 
favour of Nicetas and the Emperor. 



48 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

chose, on the special recommendation of Nicetas^, 
a man whose life and character so far commanded 
the admiration of the Jacobites, that they honoured 
him during his lifetime and after death enshrined 
his memory in the Coptic calendar. It is curious 
to find that Nicetas was at a later date largely 
instrumental in bringing about the union of the 
Monophysite Syrian with the Coptic Church, a fact 
which shows that his abiding attitude to the Copts 
was one of sympathy rather than mere tolerance. 

The new Melkite Archbishop was John the Com- 
passionate, or the Almoner — a name bestowed upon 
him for his great acts of charity ^. But his lavish- 
ness was not wholly without a method. He told 
those about him to go through the city and take 
note of all his ' lords and helpers.' When they 
questioned his meaning, he explained : * Those 
whom you call paupers and beggars I call lords and 
helpers : for they truly help us and grant us the 
Kingdom of Heaven.' So a roll of the poor was 
prepared, and they received daily relief to the 
number of 7,500. The governor Nicetas, watching 
w^th envy the ceaseless flow of wealth from the 
Patriarch, went to him one day and said, ' The 
government is hard pressed for money : what you 
receive is gotten freely without impoverishing any- 
body : therefore give it to the treasury.' The 

^ Gelzer's Leontios von NeapoUs, Anhang ii. p. no (fragment 
from Life of John the Almoner by John Moschus and Sophronius). 

^ Gibbon remarks curiously and with curious unfairness : * The 
boundless alms of John the Eleemosynary were dictated by super- 
stition or benevolence or policy ' : and he seems to say that it was 
in John's time that * the churches of Alexandria were delivered 
to the Catholics and the religion of the Monophysites was pro- 
scribed ' — a statement which happens to be less true of this time 
than of almost any other. 



Egypt under the new Emperor 49 

Patriarch answered: * What is offered to the heavenly- 
King must not be given to an earthly. I can give 
you nothing. But yours is the responsibility, and 
the store of the Lord is under my bed/ So Nicetas 
called his retainers, and ordered them to take the 
money. As they were leaving, they met men 
carrying in their hands little jars labelled * Best 
Honey' and * Unsmoked Honey,' and Nicetas asked 
for a jar for his own table. The bearers whispered 
to the Patriarch that the vessels were full of gold : 
nevertheless John sent a jar to Nicetas with a 
message advising him to have it opened in his 
own presence, and adding that all the vessels he 
had seen were full of money. Nicetas thereupon 
went in person to the Patriarch and returned all 
the money he had taken, together with the jar and 
a handsome sum besides^. 

Stories of this kind at least show the power and 
resources of the pontiff at Alexandria, and it is 
interesting to learn also that the Church had its 
own fleet of trading vessels. It is related that one 
such ship with a cargo of 20,000 bushels of corn 
was driven so far out of its course by storms that 
it reached Britain, where there happened to be a 
severe famine. It returned laden with tin, which 
the captain sold at Pentapolis. In another instance 
we hear of a flotilla of thirteen ships, each carrying 
10,000 bushels of grain, which lost all their burden 
in a tempest in the Adriatic. They belonged to 
the Church, and besides corn they carried silver, 

^ These details are given by Leontius (Gelzer, op. cit., and 
Migne, Patr, Gr. t. 93, col. 16 18). Another account — and a 
very probable one— makes Nicetas demand the money by order 
of Heraclius, who needed it to reorganize his army : see Lebeau's 
Histoire du Bas Empire, ed. de Saint-Martin, vol. xi. pp. 52-3. 

BUTLER JJ 



50 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

fine tissues, and other precious wares ^. Nor can 
it be doubted that the Church had its share of 
the enormous grain trade between Alexandria 
and Constantinople which Justinian carefully re- 
organized 2. And beyond the profits of such traffic 
and the voluntary offerings of the people, the 
Church had endowments of land which brought 
in large revenues, Hence it is not surprising to 
learn that, while John the Almoner astonished the 
world by his bounty, Andronicus, who succeeded 
Anastasius as Coptic Patriarch, and was for some 
few months at any rate contemporary with John, 
was scarcely less famed for his wealth and his 
charity. 

Although the double succession of pontiffs was 
maintained, and although the early policy of Heraclius 
was to bring about a reconcilement between the two 
great branches of the Church of Egypt, yet as a rule 
the Coptic Archbishop was unable to maintain his 

^ It is possible that the Church secured special trading privileges 
when Hephaestus, governor of Alexandria under Justinian, stopped 
the public distribution of corn (then amounting to 2,000,000 bushels 
annually), which had been customary since the days of Diocletian. 
Hephaestus in a letter to the Emperor criticized the system of 
distribution as both unjust and impolitic. See Procopius, p. 219 
(Athens, 1896). 

2 The corn-stores by the docks at Phiale in Alexandria were 
liable to attack and plunder in every street riot,, till Justinian 
fortified the granaries in connexion with the service of barges from 
the Nile with a strong enclosure wall. Moreover the corn-ships 
were often detained at the mouth of the Dardanelles waiting for 
a south wind to carry them forward : but to obviate this delay 
Justinian built large storehouses where the ships could at once 
deliver their cargoes and clear for return to Egypt, while another 
service of vessels would carry the corn on to Constantinople when 
the wind favoured. See Procopius on the Buildings of Justinian^ 
Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, vol. ii. p. 152. 



Egypt under the new Emperor 51 

seat in the metropolis. The hostility between the 
two sects, even when smouldering, was ready to 
burst into a blaze when fanned by the slightest 
gust of passion ; and the government could not in 
common prudence brook the presence of the rival 
Archbishops in the capital^. When, for example, 
Anastasius welcomed the Patriarch of Antloch, we 
find him living at the Ennaton, a famous monastery, 
which lay near the shore nine miles westward of 
Alexandria 2, and from there he went forth In solemn 

^ It is fair to state that Makrtzt makes Anastasius 'take up 
his residence at Alexandria.' This may mean no more than that 
he resided near Alexandria, which is not disputed : but Makrizi's 
whole account of this period is very confused and untrustworthy. 
See Malan s translation, pp. 67-9. 

^ In Coptic this monastery appears as niend^Ton (Zoega, Cat, 
Cod. Copt. pp. 89, 93), ni^end^Tort (id. ib. 337), and ngenewTore 
(Am^lineau, Geographic de V Egypte a Vepoque Copte, p. 531). 
The Greek form ro "'Eivvarov or "^vaTov (Cotelerius, Monumenta 
Ecclesiae Graecae, t. i. pp. 460, 520; John Moschus, Pratum 
Spzrituale, c. 145, 177, 184) is translated as 'Ennatum' in Latin 
(Rosweyde, Vttae Patrum, pp. 609, 613). The Arabic Makrizt 
identifies a monastery which he calls that of ^r^^^^ (or the glass- 
blower) with the Ennaton, jj^ljl, and he adds that it is under 
the invocation of St. George. The Patriarch formerly was obliged 
after his election in the church of Al Mu'allakah in the Roman 
Fortress of Babylon at Misr to visit the Monastery of Al Ziijaj, 
but the custom fell into disuse, says Makrtzi. It certainly 
points to the very great importance of the Ennaton in the eyes 
of the Copts — an importance which is emphasized in the history 
of the sixth and seventh centuries. It was there that, according to 
the Synaxaria, the body of Severus, Patriarch of Antioch, was pre- 
served, that the work of revising the Syriac version was carried 
out, and that the union of the Churches of Egypt and Antioch 
was accomplished at this period. The monastery is mentioned 
by Abu Salih {Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, ed. Evetts 
and Butler, p. 229 and note), who uses the form jjj^IjIjja. Gold- 
schmidt and Pereira, to whose note I am much indebted, conclude 
that the Ennaton is the same as Al Zujaj : that it lay nine miles 

E 2 



52 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

procession to meet his visitor^. Nor did he go to 
Alexandria, but summoned thence his clergy and 
held in the monastery that conclave which resulted 
in the re-establishment of full communion with 
Antioch. 

But Andronicus, the successor of Anastasius, offers 
a remarkable exception to this rule of non-residence. 
At the time of his election he was deacon at the 
Cathedral church of Angellon^ in Alexandria, and 
there in the cells attached to the Cathedral he 
continued to reside during the whole period of his 

to the west of Alexandria: and that it was under the invocation 
of St. George {Vida do Abba Daniel do Mosteiro de Sceti^ 
Versao Ethiopica, p. 37 n.). I think it clear that the name 
comes from the milestone distance, just as at Constantinople the 
well-known fortress and palace was called the Hebdomon or 
Seventh: but the dedication is more doubtful. It appears to be 
called '^aXa/jia in John Moschus; it was quite distinct from the 
monastery which appears in Severus as u^jt^jl^ ^^^ which should 
certainly be read as u^j^^ yj, or [j^jij^, Kyrios or Cyprius. 
But the fact doubtless is that, as usual in the case of large 
monasteries, many churches were included within the walls; 
and as these had their separate dedications, there is ground for 
some confusion. South-west of Alexandria towards Mareotis there 
was another called to UefxTrrov, and we read of another called 
TO 'OySo)Kai€KaTov : see Revue de I Orient Chretien, 1901, no. i^ 
p. 65, n. I. 

^ Mrs. E. L. Butcher, in her work The Story of the Church of 
Egypt, represents the Patriarch of Antioch as taking refuge in 
Egypt at the time of the Persian invasion : but the truth is that 
he came to confer with the Coptic Patriarch on Church matters, 
more particularly the Union. At the same time great numbers 
of Syrian clergy with their bishops, as well as laymen of all 
ranks, are specially recorded to have fled to Alexandria before 
the Persian invasion. Gelzer's Leontios von Neapolis, Anhang 
ii. p. 112. 

^ It is not clear whether Angelion or Euangelion is the proper 
title of this church. Both forms are found, but the simple Angelion 
seems the more common. 



Egypt under the new Emperor 53 

primacy, which lasted six years. This immunity 
from banishment was due to the fact that he 
belonged to a noble family, and had the support 
of powerful kinsmen in the government of the city. 
What the personal relations of the two Patriarchs 
were is not known; but John the Almoner died 
a few months after Andronicus came to the Coptic 
throne, and it is doubtful whether George ^, the 
successor of John in the Melkite chair, lived in 
Alexandria at all, so that the personal question may 
never have become dangerous. 

It is useless to regret that these not very interest- 
ing details of matters ecclesiastical furnish the chief 
record that remains of the history of Egypt during 
the first five or six years following the revolt of 
Heraclius. But it is time now to pass to those 
great events with which the eastern part of the 
Empire was ringing, events which had their in- 
stantaneous echo on the banks of the Nile, and 
which were destined to shake the Byzantine power 
in Egypt to its foundations and prepare the way 
for the Arab conquest. But the great conflict 
between the Empire and Persia took place on a 
wider stage ; and in order to understand its bearing 
upon the fortunes of Egypt, it is necessary to follow 
its vicissitudes, if only in rough outline. 

^ Little or nothing is known of George except that he wrote 
a life of St. John Chrysostom. Theophanes gives fourteen years 
as the term of his patriarchate, yet inconsistently, though truly 
perhaps, makes him die in 630, after a period of only ten years 
on the throne. Eutychius makes a vacancy of seven years 
between John and George, and this is probably the explanation 
of the discrepancy in Theophanes. 



CHAPTER VI 

PERSIAN CONQUEST OF SYRIA 

Chosroes established on the throne of Persia. Death of Maurice 
and rupture between Persia and the Empire. Persian conquest of 
Syria. Jews and Christians. Fall of Jerusalem and captivity of 
the Patriarch Zacharias. Flight of refugees to Egypt. John the 
Almoner's measures of relief. Rebuilding of the churches in 
Jerusalem. Christian council held by Chosroes. The Almoner's 
mission to Jerusalem. 

When Chosroes, grandson of Anushlrwan, the 
great .King of Persia, had a few days after his 
enthronement been driven from his kingdom by the 
rebel usurper Bahram, he fled with his two uncles 
across the Tigris, cutting the ropes of the ferry 
behind him to baffle his pursuers ^ He pushed on 
to Circesium on the Euphrates, wishing to pray at 
a Christian shrine for deliverance from his enemies. 
Thence he is said to have wandered irresolute and 
despondent ; and hesitating whether he should seek 
protection with the Huns or with the Romans, he 
threw the reins on his horse's neck and left the 
decision to chance^. His animal carried him to 
the Roman frontiers, and he became the guest of 
the nation with whom his country had been waging 
war for the space of nearly seven centuries. 

He was well received by the Emperor Maurice, 
or rather by his lieutenant, at Hierapolis. The 
Emperor is said himself to have sent him a treasure 

^ Journal Asiatique^ 6® s^rie, 1866, p. 192. The uncles, named 
Bundawi and Bustam, were put to death in true oriental style by 
their nephew on his accession to the throne. 

^ Tarikh Regum Persi'ae, ed. W. Schikard, p. 154. 



Persian Conquest of Syria 55 

of priceless jewels and to have given him his 
daughter Mary in marriage ^. It Is of more Impor- 
tance that he espoused the cause of the Persian 
prince, and sent N arses with a vast army to recover 
the kingdom from Bahram. The issue was decided 
in a bloody battle on the river Zab in the district 
of Balarath, where, although the Persian commander 
fought with his usual adroitness and valour, his 
army was outnumbered and cut to pieces. Bahram 
fled to Balkh, where the ministers of the Kings 
vengeance soon tracked him down and destroyed 
him 2. Chosroes was thus by Roman aid placed 
on the throne of Persia; a picked regiment of a 
thousand Romans formed his body-guard ; and 
peace was established between the two Empires. 
It is even said that Chosroes turned Christian, and 
his costly offerings at the shrine of St. Sergius 
and his letters to the Patriarch of Antioch are 
quoted as evidence of his preference for the Jacobite 
profession of faith ^ 
/ 

^ So Eutychius and Makin, while other writers merely make 
the lady of Roman birth. She is apparently identified by Gibbon 
with Shirin; but the Persian romance called The Loves of 
Khusrau and Shirin clearly distinguishes Mary as a separate 
personality. See Sir W. Ouseley's translation in Oriental Collec- 
tions ^ vol. i. p. 224. Yet Shirin also was a Christian. Sebeos, 
who calls her Queen of Queens, says that she built besides 
monasteries a church near the royal palace, which she adorned 
with gold and silver, and to which she appointed priests and 
deacons, with endowments from the royal exchequer for salaries 
and vestments. 

^ According to one account he was poisoned by the Queen 
of the Khakan of Tartary, to whom Chosroes was related. See 
Sir J. Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. i. p. 155 n. 

^ Abu '1 Faraj, who gives in full the letters exchanged between 
Chosroes and Maurice, adds that after the defeat of Bahram the 
King built two churches for the Christians, one dedicated to the 



56 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

No doubt his education and his close relations 
with the Christian Empire, as well as his marriage, 
softened the traditional hostility of a Magian to the 
Christian reliofion. But the Romans claimed as the 
reward of their alliance an annexation of territory 
which brought their Empire up to the banks of 
the Araxes ; and while this loss was galling to 
Chosroes and his people, the King s leanings to an 
alien religion were equally galling to his priests, and 

B.V.M., the other to St. Sergius (ed. Pococke, pp. 96-8). The 
offerings are mentioned by Evagrius, who says that Chosroes gave 
to the church a processional cross, a chalice and paten, an altar- 
cross, and a censer — all of pure gold — besides a curtain of Hunnish 
embroidery spangled with gold. Theophylact also relates that 
Chosroes in his hour of dejection vowed a magnificent golden cross 
set with pearls and sapphires to St. Sergius — a saint whom even 
the wandering tribes venerated — and he gives the same list of 
additional offerings made by Chosroes when Sira or Shirin showed 
promise of bearing a son. The great Anushirwan himself, for all 
his persecution of the Christians, is alleged to have been on friendly 
terms with Uranius, a Nestorian Christian philosopher widely famed 
for his Aristotelian teaching : see Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History 
eleventh ed., p. 218. 5 (London, W. Tegg, 1880). But the author 
of this story cannot have read or believed Agathias, who was a 
contemporary of Uranius, and reports him as a shallow disputatious 
fellow, given to loafing among the bookstalls of Constantinople. 
Agathias makes out that Anfishirwan was no scholar, though a fine 
soldier, and that Uranius was little better than a drunken parasite 
at his court {Hist. lib. 2, ap. Migne, Patr. Gr. t. 88). Zachariah 
of Mitylene gives some interesting details of the honour shown to 
Christians at the court of the Persian King, and of the good service 
wrought by Christian physicians, especially in getting the King to 
build and endow a hospital — a thing then unknown in Persia (tr. 
Hamilton and Brooks, p. 331). See also infra, p. 66, n. 2, and 
p. 135, n. I. In India even to-day there is a firm tradition that one 
of Anfishirwan's sons, called Mushzad, was a Christian. That very 
eminent convert from Islam, the Rev. M. Imad ad Dtn Lalfiz, who 
died in the year 1900, claimed direct descent from this Mushzad 
{Church Missionary Intelligencer, December, 1900, p. 913). 



Persian Conquest of Syria 57 

were doubtless quickly corrected. He was con- 
sequently driven by powerful forces, religious and 
political, to break the pact with Byzantium. He 
got rid of the Roman guard, and he quarrelled with 
Narses who was in command at Dara; whereupon 
Maurice, anxious to soothe the King's enmity, re- 
placed Narses by Germanus \ 

It was at this time that the deformed and ferocious 
Phocas, having secured the supreme power at Byzan- 
tium, had the Emperor Maurice and all his sons 
and his daughters put to death. Chosroes hardly 
needed now the pretext his indignation furnished 
for a declaration of open war. Any doubt he may 
have felt was removed when Narses set up the 
standard of revolt at Edessa, dividing the Empire 
against itself^. It is true that Narses, venturing 
in a fit of foolish confidence to visit his partisans 
at the capital, was seized by Phocas and burnt at 
the Hippodrome ; but the die was cast. When there- 
fore Lilius, the envoy of Phocas, reached Germanus 

^ The last page or so of Theophylact may be consulted here : 
he ends with the rupture of peace. But, though a native of Egypt, 
he is very disappointing as an authority. He only mentions his 
country twice, and that to record foolish prodigies. The first is, 
the rise of a monstrous form from the Nile — a story which curiously 
is recorded also by John of Nikiou in a slightly altered shape 
(P- 533) J the second is the downfall of all the statues of Maurice 
in Alexandria on the night of his murder. This, says Theophylact, 
was witnessed by a friend of his own, an illuminator, returning late 
from a festive party. A natural explanation of the phenomenon is 
not far to seek. 

^ It appears from the Tarikh Regum Persiae of Schikard 
(p. 155) that this revolt coincided with and was probably caused 
by the elevation of Phocas to the throne. John of Nikiou relates 
that Chosroes tried to poison Narses and his men and horses : but 
it is not clear in what way the achievement of this purpose would 
have advantaged him (pp. 528-9). * 



58 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

at Dara and was sent on with every mark of honour 
to the Persian court, bearing letters and royal gifts 
for the King, Chosroes flung the Emperors am- 
bassador into a dungeon and marched his forces into 
Armenia. 

It is not within the scope of this work to follow 
the campaigns of Chosroes against Phocas. They 
neither fall within the period under review, nor 
connect, save by their broad results, with the history 
of Egypt ; and the present writer could add little or 
nothing to the records already written. Suffice it 
therefore to say that after overrunning iVrmenia, 
which had so often been the battlefield of contending 
empires, the Persian King divided his forces, and 
sent one army southward to the conquest of Syria 
and another westward through the heart of Asia 
Minor with the design of reaching Constantinople. 
The order of events is by no means clear; but it 
is the fortune of the southern force that concerns 
us here, and so slow was its progress that the fall 
of Antioch only coincided with the coronation of 
Heraclius. Had the motive of Chosroes in waging 
war been merely revenge against Phocas, the death 
of that tyrant might have ended the strife : but the 
Great King had proved the weakness of his enemies, 
and the success of his arms only fired his ambition. 
He now aimed at nothing less than the total sub- 
jugation of the Roman Empire. It was no visionary 
scheme. In numbers, equipment, and discipline his 
troops were far superior to those of the enemy ; his 
commanders — now that Bondsus and Narses were 
dead — were unrivalled ; his treasury was full and 
his people united, while the Emperor's people were 
divided, and his exchequer wellnigh exhausted. 

Still the Syrian country was difficult: siege 



Persian Conquest of Syria 59 

methods were tedious : and a great amount of time 
was wasted every year in winter quarters. Hence 
it was not till the fifth year of Heraclius' reign that 
the Persian general Khorheam ^ after taking Da- 
mascus and Caesarea advanced to the capture of 
Jerusalem. From his head quarters at Caesarea, 
Khorheam, it seems, sent envoys calling on Jeru- 
salem to surrender to the Great King ; and the city 
was actually delivered up to the Persian officers by 
the Jews, who had prevailed over the Christian popu- 
lation 2. Some months later, however, the Christians 

^ Eutychius, ap. Migne, Patr. Gr, t. iii, col. 1082, gives the 
name as Chorawazaih. It is found as ^ap/3apa^as and ^apl3avat,as 
in Theophanes: as '^dp/3apo? in the Chronicon Paschale: also in 
the forms Sharawazaih and Shahrbarz : and it is a corruption of 
the Persian ' Shah-Waraz,' which means ' The King's Wild Boar.* 
A wild boar, as the emblem of fierce strength, was engraved on 
the seal of ancient Persia and also on that of Armenia. The 
designation Shah-Waraz was of course a title of honour, not 
a name. The same general (who afterwards for a short time 
usurped the throne of Persia) is known also by another title, which 
appears in Armenian authors as Erasman, Razman, Rhomizan, or 
Ramikozan, and in Greek authors as Rasmisas or Romizanes; 
in the proper form of Rhozmiozan in Moses of Kaghankatouts ; 
and as 'Pov/>iia^a]/ in Theophanes. His name as distinguished from 
these titles was Khorheam. See Journal Asiatique, 6© s^rie, 
1866, p. 197. Yet the name Khorheam seems unknown to Persian 
writers. Mr. Platts tells me that in Persian histories this king is 
called j\^ (kuraz = boar) or j^. j^ (shahr-baraz), or }ij^ 
(shahr-ydr). 

^ The same fierce hostility of Jew to Christian is recorded by 
Cedrenus, who relates that in the last year of Phocas' reign the 
Jews fell upon the Christians at Antioch, whereupon Phocas sent 
Bonosus against the Jews, on whom he wreaked vengeance with 
the most revolting barbarity. See above, ch. ii. p. 14. Doubtless 
in the next year the Jews at Antioch aided the Persian invaders, 
as they did at Jerusalem. See Corp. Hut. Byzant. Script, t. vii. 
p. 708 : also Makrizi (Malan's tr.), p. 68. So also when Shahin 
(or Sa6n) appeared in 610 before Caesarea in Cappadocia, the 



6o The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

rose in revolt, slew the Persian chiefs, overmastered 
the garrison, and closed the gates. The Shah-Waraz 
then advanced to beleaguer the town : but aided by 
the Jews he succeeded in undermining the walls, 
and on the nineteenth day from their arrival his 
troops entered by the breach and took the city by 
storm ^. Scenes of massacre, rapine, and destruction 
ensued. The most reasonable estimate, which is 
that of Sebeos and of Thomas Ardzrouni, places the 
slain at 57,000 and the captives at 35,000, while 
the Byzantine historians say loosely that 90,000 
perished ^. The Armenians are probably nearer the 
truth, but it is certain that many thousand clergy 
and monks, saints and nuns, were put to the sword. 
After twenty-one days of plunder and slaughter, the 
Persians retired outside the walls, and set fire to 
the city. Thus the church of the Holy Sepulchre 
and all the famous churches of Constantine^ were 

Christians fled, but the Jews tendered their submission to the 
Persians. In harmony with all this is the evidence of Sebeos, 
which is most explicit ' At this time,' he says, ' all the country 
of Palestine freely submitted to the rule of the Persian King. 
Chiefly the remnant of the Hebrews rose against the Christians, 
and moved by traditional hatred, they wrought much evil in the 
midst of the faithful. They went over to the Persians, and joined 
with them in friendly relations.' If further proof of the Jews' 
intolerant hatred of Christians were wanted, it might be found 
in the pages of Zachariah of Mitylene, who describes the barbarities 
wrought by the Homerite Kings of Arabia, who were Jews, upon 
their Christian subjects : see Hamilton and Brooks' tr., pp. 200 seq. 

^ This account is given by Sebeos and, I think, by him alone 
among the authorities. 

^ Theophanes, Cedrenus, and Zonaras agree in this number, 
which is found also in the Tarikh Regum Persiae, p. 155. It 
tallies closely with Sebeos* number, if we put his slain and captives 
together. But one MS. of Sebeos gives 17,000 as the number of 
the slain. 

^ For an account of these beautiful buildings see Palestine 



Persian Conquest of Syria 6i 

destroyed or dismantled. The Holy Rood, which had 
been buried in its golden and bejewelled case ^ was 
unearthed ^ when its hiding-place had been disclosed 
under torture, and with countless holy vessels of 
gold and silver was carried away as plunder, while 
great multitudes, including the Patriarch Zacharias, 
were driven into captivity. The reliquary of the 
Holy Cross and the Patriarch were sent as pre- 
sents to Mary the wife of Chosroes ^ : but of the 
ordinary captives many were redeemed by the Jews 
for the mere pleasure of putting them to death, if 
Cedrenus is to be believed. ^ All these things 
happened not in a year or a month but within a few 
days ' pathetically exclaims the writer of the Chroni- 
con Paschale, and the date is accurately fixed to the 
month of May, 615 *. 

Pilgrims Text Society, vol. i, and the anacreontics of Sophronius 
in Migne, Patr. Gr. t. 87 (3). 

^ Malcolm's History of Persia^ vol. i. p. 157. 

^ The Cross had been buried in a garden and vegetables 
planted over it. 

' Eutychius, ap. Migne, Patr. Gr. t. iii, col. 1082. 

* Theophanes gives the fifth year of Heraclius, a. m. 6106. This 
A. M.=6i5 A. D., as is proved by the correspondence of a.m. 61 13 
with the year of Heraclius' expedition and Mohammed's appearance 
(a. D. 622). Sebeos gives the year as Chosroes 25, the latter 
half of which corresponds with the first half of 615. As regards 
the day of the month, there is some confusion in the Armenian 
writers. Thomas Ardzrouni says the capture of the city took 
place ten days after Easter on Margats 28. Dulaurier (Chronologie 
Arm^m'enne, pp. 222-3) shows that the two dates cannot coincide, 
since Easter in 614, to which year Dulaurier seems to assign the 
fall of Jerusalem, was March 31, and ten days later = April 10; 
whereas Margats 28=May 26. Sebeos agrees very closely with 
Thomas Ardzrouni, but makes the ten days after Easter = 
Margats 27, which date Mr, Conybeare puts as equivalent to 
May 20. But Easter in 615 fell upon April 20, and if we suppose 
that in the MS. the figure 10 is confused with 30, we have in 



62 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

So the Holy City was smitten with fire and sword. 
But of the remnant that escaped slaughter and 
captivity many fled southward to the Christian cities 
of Arabia^ — quiet communities whose peace was 
already disturbed by echoes of the cry of the rising 
prophet of Islam. Yet it was probably in connexion 
with this very triumph of the idolatrous Persians at 
Jerusalem that Mohammed uttered his famous pro- 
phecy : ' The Romans have been overcome by the 
Persians in the nearest part of the land ; but after 
their defeat they shall overcome in their turn within 
a few years 2.' But the main refuge of the scattered 
Christians was in Egypt, and particularly Alexandria, 
where the population was already swollen by crowds 
of refugees who had been flocking thither during 
the whole course of the Persian invasion of Syria. 

The bounty and resources of John the Almoner 
were already strained by the prevailing destitution, 
even before the exiles from Jerusalem were thrown 
upon the city. To add to the troubles of the time, 
that same summer saw a serious failure of the Nile 
flood, and the result was a devastating famine ^ 
throughout the land of Egypt. Gifts nevertheless 

May 20 an exact correspondence. Moreover the Chromcon 
Paschale says that the capture took place 'towards the month of 
June/ and this is quite decisive as between the discrepant dates 
of the Armenians. It is, however, to be remarked that the 
Chromcon makes the capture of the city take place in the fourth 
year of Heraclius, and apparently Severus and Cedrenus agree with 
it in placing the date in 614. The testimony of the Chronicon 
Paschale is difficult to reject, but one must in this particular decide 
against it on a balance of evidence. 

^ For an account of these communities see Wright's Chrisiianiiy 
in Arabia. 

2 Al Kuran, s. xxx, and Sale's notes. 

^ Leontius, ap. Migne, Pair, Gr. t. 93, col. 1625. 



Persian Conquest of Syria 63 

poured in to the Church, and few of those who came 
to John, *as to a waveless haven,' for refuge were 
disappointed. Besides the daily dole of food for 
the needy the good Patriarch provided almshouses 
and hospitals for the sick and wounded, and scorned 
even to rebuke those wealthy men who were mean 
enough to take advantage of his charity. But such 
lavishness could not last : and as the famine grew 
fiercer, John found his chest becoming empty. In 
this strait he was sorely tempted by a layman who 
had been twice married and was therefore disquali- 
fied for orders ^, but who offered a vast sum of money 
and a great weight of corn as the price of his 
ordination. John had only two measures of corn 
remaining in his granary : but in the end he rejected 
the offer, and was rewarded almost on the moment 
by the news that two of the Church corn-ships, with 
large cargoes of grain, had just rounded the Pharos 
from Sicily, and were moored in the harbour. 

Yet the good works of the Patriarch were not 
bounded by Egypt or confined to feeding the hungry. 
No sooner had the Holy City been sacked than 
a certain monk named Modestus, who had escaped 
the slaughter, wandered through Palestine begging 
for alms to reinstate the ruined churches. He was 
successful in his mission, and returning with a great 
sum of money to Jerusalem, he found that the Jews 
had now forfeited the special protection of the 
Persians, which they had at first received as the 
guerdon of their service to the conquerors. The 
Christians were again in favour, and Modestus being 
appointed civil and spiritual head of the community, 
was suffered to rebuild the churches. Indeed, as 

^ See Mrs. E. L. Butcher's .Slory of the Church of Egypt^ vol. i. 
P- 345. 



64 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Sebeos relates, Chosroes had sent special orders 
to treat the captives kindly, to resettle them, and 
to restore the public buildings. He also sanctioned 
the expulsion of the Jews — an order which was 
carried out with the greatest alacrity. 

The same historian gives a letter written by 
Modestus to Koumitas, Metropolitan of Armenia, 
after the completion of the work upon the churches. 
* God now has made our adversaries friends,' it says, 
'and shown us mercy and pity from our captors. 
But the Jews . . . who presumed to do battle and 
to burn those glorious places, are driven out from 
the Holy City, and must not inhabit it nor see 
the holy places restored to their magnificence.' 
And again : * All the churches of Jerusalem have 
been set in order, and are served by clergy : peace 
reigns in the City of God and round about it.' 

Not less curious is the narrative, given by the 
same writer, of a kind of council held by the 
Christians at the suggestion of Chosroes. The 
story is preserved in a letter sent by the Armenian 
Catholicus and bishops in reply to a message from 
Constantine, successor to Heraclius. The latter 
relates that the Great King ordered all the bishops 
of the East and of Assyria to assemble at his Court, 
remarking : * I hear that there are two parties of 
Christians, and that the one curses the other : which 
is to be regarded as in the right ? They shall 
come to a general assembly to confirm the right 
and reject the wrong.* One Smbat Bagratouni and 
the King's chief physician were made presidents. 
It is specially recorded that Zacharias, the Patriarch 
of Jerusalem, was present, and ' many other wise 
.men who had been carried into captivity from Alex- 
andria.* The council proved very turbulent, and 



Persian Conquest of Syria 65 

the King had to expel all sects but those who 
followed the doctrines of NIcaea, Constantinople, 
Ephesus, and Chalcedon. These several doctrines 
he ordered the assembled divines to examine and 
report upon. Memorials representlngvarlous opinions 
were submitted to the King, who discussed and 
pondered them. Finally, Zacharlas and the Alex- 
andrian divines were separately asked to pronounce 
the truth under oath, and they declared the right 
faith to be that approved by the Councils of 
NIcaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus, but not that 
of Chalcedon : In other words they pronounced for 
the Monophysltes. Thereupon the King ordered a 
search to be made in the royal treasury or library 
for the document of the NIcaean faith, which was 
found, and declared to be In agreement with the 
faith of the Armenians. Accordingly Chosroes 
issued an edict that ' All the Christians under my 
rule shall accept the faith of the Armenians.* Among 
those who so agreed are named ' the God-loving 
queen Shirin, the brave Smbat, and the chief royal 
physician.' The instrument embodying the right 
confession of faith, as the result of the council, was 
sealed with the Great King's seal, and deposited 
with the royal archives. 

This singular episode, embedded In the letter of 
the Armenian bishops and so preserved to history, 
is the most striking evidence we possess of Chosroes' 
attitude to the Christians. The letter itself has the 
ring of truth, and there is no reason whatever to 
question Its genuineness. It was written somewhere 
about the year 638, or some twenty years after the 
council which It records, and which was assembled 
not long after the Persian capture of Jerusalem. The 
Great King is here revealed in a new light. He is 



66 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

no fanatical heathen monarch, persecuting or warring 
against the believers in the Cross. On the contrary, 
he acknowledges the right of the Christians to their 
belief, shows a curious speculative interest in their 
tenets, is puzzled by their most unchristian fightings 
and anathemas, and either from kindly wishes for 
their welfare or from mere motives of state policy 
he desires to compose their differences. He was 
present at the debate, put questions, and weighed 
answers. When his mind was made up and his 
decision given, he seems to have threatened some 
of the bishops that he would put them to the sword 
and pull down their churches if they disobeyed his 
ordinance. But on the whole the story shows a 
toleration verging on sympathy for the Christian 
religion — the same frame of mind which is displayed 
in the order restoring the Christian outcasts to 
Jerusalem and enabling them under Modestus to 
rebuild the churches. John of Nikiou relates ^ that 
Hormisdas' father, the great An^ishirwan, after 
secretly professing Christianity, was baptized by 
a bishop. However that may be, the influence of 
Christian queens, physicians, and philosophers at the 
court clearly enlightened the King's mind and 
softened his disposition towards the Christian re- 
ligion 2. We have far more reason for astonishment 

^ p. 526. 

^ See also supra, p. 55, n. 3. I may add that, according to Tabart 
(ed. De Goeje, vol. i. p. 1000), shortly after his accession Chosroes 
issued an edict allowing the Christians in his dominions to restore 
their churches and to make converts of the Magians, if they could, 
alleging that a similar edict had been issued by AnushtrwSn in con- 
sequence of a treaty with Caesar. Ya'kubl relates (ed. Houtema, 
vol. i. p. 194) that when Chosroes announced his early victories to 
Maurice, the Emperor sent him a robe embroidered with crosses, 
which he wore to the scandal of his people. Moreover he ' issued 



Persian Conquest of Syria 67 

at the normal toleration which the Church enjoyed 
under Persian rule than for surprise at the occasional 
outbursts of ferocity from which it suffered. 

But to resume. The contribution offered by John 
of Alexandria towards the reinstatement of the 
churches in Jerusalem is said to have been a thou- 
sand mules, a thousand sacks of corn and of vege- 
tables, a thousand vessels of pickled fish, a thousand 
jars of wine, a thousand pounds of iron, and a 
thousand workmen^ : and John wrote in a letter to 
Modestus — ' Pardon me that I can send nothing 
worthy the temples of Christ. Would that I could 
come myself and work with my own hands at the 
church of the Resurrection ^.' He is also recorded 
to have sent a large convoy of gold, corn, clothing, 
and the like, under charge of one Chrysippus— 
though this, albeit separately related, may be the 
same story in another form — and to have com- 
missioned Theodore bishop of Amathus in Cyprus, 
Gregory bishop of Rhinocolura ^, and Anastasius 

a decree commanding that the Christians should be held in 
honour and publicly acknowledged and promoted to high places, 
and he announced that a treaty had been made between himself 
and the King of the Romans such as no king had made 
before him/ 

^ Eutychius, ap. Migne, Pair. Gr. t. iii, col. 1082 seq. Euty- 
chius is of course wrong in saying that these events took place in 
the sixth year of Phocas : it should be Heraclius, as in Cedrenus 
and Theophanes. Leontius gives practically the same version ot 
John's contribution, but he adds a thousand pieces of gold, and he 
writes ' strings of fish ' instead of pickled fish in jars. 

2 Zacharias, who was Patriarch of Jerusalem from 609 to 628 
or 629, and was carried off by the Persians,' has left an account 
of the Persian conquest which may be read in Migne, t. 86, col. 
3219 seq., and from which I have quoted. 

^ Rhinocolura was a town on the Egyptian frontier towards 
Palestine. Diodorus Siculus derives its name from a legend that 

F2 



6s The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Abbot of the monastery of the Great Mountain of 
St. Anthony ^, with large sums of money to recover 
and redeem as many captives as they could. This 
was in the latter half of 615. 

a King of Egypt called Artisanes used it as a place of exile for 
malefactors, who were marked by having their noses slit or cut 
off. The town was known in Arab times as Al 'Arish. See 
Quatrembre, Mem, i. p. 53; Rec. de V^gypte^ ii. pp. x, xi, 20. 
Champollion rejects Diodorus' etymology, but cutting off the nose 
was a recognized and common form of punishment in Graeco- 
Roman law at this time : see Bury's Gibbon, vol. v. p. 529. Sebeos 
also relates that Heraclius inflicted this penalty on those who joined 
Athalaric's conspiracy after his return from Jerusalem. 

^ The monastery here spoken of may well be the well-known 
one on the Red Sea coast, as ks description seems to imply; or 
it may be one of the same name on the mountain near Kift on 
the Nile by Kanah. See Abu Salih, Churches and Monasteries of 
Egypt, pp. 159-62 and 280. Sharpe in his History of Egypt 
(vol. ii. p. 368) speaks of a mo.nastery of St. Anthony in the 
capital : but that seems to me a quite baseless conjecture. 



CHAPTER VII 

PERSIAN CONQUEST OF EGYPT 

Union established between the Coptic and Syrian Churches. 
Advance of the Persians on Egypt. Capture of Babylon and Nikiou, 
and siege of Alexandria. Flight of Nicetas and John the Almoner. 
Death of the latter. The city betrayed by a student, Peter of 
Bahrain. Death of Andronicus. The attitude of the Copts to the 
invaders : current fallacies refuted. Story of Pisentios and treat- 
ment of the Copts. Treatment of Alexandria. The Fort of the 
Persians. 

About the same time that the caravans sent by 
John the Almoner were crossing the desert from 
Egypt to Jerusalem, in the early autumn of 615, 
the Coptic Patriarch Anastasius received a visit 
from Athanasius, the Patriarch of Antioch, who 
had been dispossessed by the Persian invasion. 
They met, as has been stated, in the celebrated 
Ennaton monastery on the sea-coast westward 
of Alexandria. One or two bishops from Syria 
probably accompanied their Patriarch ; others, like 
Thomas of Harkel and Paul of Telia, were already 
settled at the monastery, working hard at their 
great task of revising the Syriac version of the 
Bible by collation of the Greek : and yet others 
were in Egypt as refugees. For 'while the Per- 
sians were ravaging Syria, all who could escape 
from their hands — laymen of all ranks, and clergy 
of all ranks with their bishops — fled for refuge 
to Alexandria \' It is therefore extremely prob- 
able that, as tradition avers, five Syrian bishops 
were present at the meeting of the two Patriarchs, 

^ Gelzer's Leontius von Neapolis, Anhang ii. p. 112. 



70 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

which resulted in the establishment of union between 
the Syrian and the Coptic Church. Anastasius 
only remained a month in Egypt, after which he 
returned to Syria, where he witnessed the beginning 
of that curious toleration which seems almost every- 
where to have followed not far behind the bloody 
steps of the Persian conquerors. Sword in hand 
the Persians showed a savage ferocity which passed 
all bounds of reason and necessity, and which 
seemed never to tire of mere slaughter : but when 
the reign of peace returned, they governed with 
unexpected mildness. So it was in Arabia, in 
Syria, and in Palestine : and so it was to prove 
in Egypt. 

The subjugation of Syria had taken six years 
to accomplish. The capture of Jerusalem probably 
left little more work for the Persian armies to do 
in that region: and towards the autumn of the 
following year 6 1 6, their preparations were complete 
for a campaign in Egypt. Apparently it was not 
the same commander, Khorheam, the Shah-Waraz, 
who led the invading forces, but another general 
called Shahin ^ and he followed the beaten track of 

^ The Chronicon Orientale and Makrizi make Chosroes himself 
the invader of Egypt, but probably only by a loose manner of 
speech. Another account gives Saen or Sals, i. e. Shahin, as the 
name of the general, and this is probably the truth, rather than that 
it was Khorheam, as Eutychius relates. There is no warrant for the 
statement that Chosroes abandoned his palace for the hardships of 
the field in either the Syrian or the Egyptian campaign. It was 
natural to suppose that Khorheam from Palestine pushed on to 
Egypt: but Tabarl's authority in such a matter is great, and he clearly \ 
states that Rumyuzan (Khorheam), was the general who captured 
Jerusalem ; that another general, Shahin, was ordered to Egypt and 
Nubia and sent home the keys of Alexandria to Chosroes ; while 
a third, Ferruhan, was dispatched to Constantinople. That the 
general was Shahin seems also- proved by the Persian papyri in 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 71 

war — the road taken by Cambyses, by Antiochus 
Epiphanes, by Alexander the Great, and destined 
not many years later to be taken by 'Amr at the 
head of his Arabs. 

The route lay from Rhinocolura along the coast 
to Peluslum, from Pelusium to Memphis and round 
the apex of the Delta, from Memphis down the 
western Nile to Nikiou and to Alexandria. The 
people of the Nile valley had neither the means 
nor the spirit for any very serious resistance, nor 
is there record of any great battle fought or 
desperate effort made to save the country. 

The Greek historians describe. the whole campaign 
in a sentence : * the Persians took all Egypt and 
Alexandria and Libya up to Ethiopia, and returned 
with a vast number of captives and a vast amount 
of spoil ^ ' ; and Egyptian authorities add less than 
could be desired to their barren narrative. We 
know, however, that Pelusium was captured without 
much difficulty, and that the Persians wrought havoc 
among its many churches and monasteries ^ Not a 
word is written about the reduction of the great 
fortress of Babylon near Memphis : but although 
it is clear that the Persians were masters of the art 
of siege warfare, it is probable that Babylon was 
undefended. After the fall of Memphis the army 
marched by land, aided by a large flotilla on the 
Nile, and they followed the right bank of the main 
western branch, past Nikiou, to Alexandria^. 

the Rainer collection : see Karabacek's Fiihrer durch die Ausstellung^ 
p. 113. 

^ Theophanes and Cedrenus. 

2 Abu Salih, p. i68, and the British Museum MS. of Severus, 
p. 1 01, referred to in the note there. 

^ The occupation of Babylon and Nikiou before the capture of 



72 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Of the capture of Alexandria itself there remains 
an account which is interesting ^ This great city, 
says the chronicle, was that * which Alexander had 
built in accordance with the counsels of his master 
Aristotle, a city girt with walls, encircled with the 
waters of the Nile, and furnished with strong gates.' 
The siege lasted some time, and with all their skill 
the Persians were unable to force an entrance into 
the great fortress. Indeed its defences were so 
strong as to be virtually impregnable. It was now, 
i.e. in 617, some 117 years since a Persian army 
had overrun Egypt, and on that occasion the flood of 
conquest which had surged over the Delta beat in 
vain against the walls of Alexandria 2. These same 
walls but eight years previously had flung back the 
desperate battalions of Bonosus, like rock-shattered 
billows : and they were destined to prove their 
strength a quarter of a century later in prolonged 
defiance of the Saracen leaguer. Clearly then at 
this juncture the long lines of bulwarks and towers 
were as formidable as ever ; and a united and 
resolute garrison, drawing endless resources from 
the sea, which the Empire still commanded, would 
have wearied out the besiegers, and either crushed 

Alexandria is related by the Cyprian monk John, who was on a 
pilgrimage in Egypt. His words are — Trapeyevofxrjv iv 'AXe^avSpeta 
Kara tov Kaipov iv <S elarjXOov ot Hepo'aL iv AiyvTmo, eri ovTUiV avTwv 
cTTt Ta fJf'€prj T^s ISlklov kol Ba^vXcuvos tt}? Kar AlyvTrTOv ', and he 
describes the rapa-)(riv koX Oopv^ov Trj<s Ilepo-tK'^s iTrLSpo/xrj<; in Alex- 
andria just as he was departing homewards. Quoted by Gelzer, 
Leontios von Neapolts, Anmerkungen, p. 152. 

^ The Syrian Chronicle (ed. Guidi and tr. Th. Noldeke) cited by 
Gelzer, 1. c. 

2 Circa 500 a. d. in the time of the Emperor Anastasius. The 
Persians set fire to the suburbs of Alexandria, but could do no 
more. 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 73 

them when weakened or forced them to raise the 
siege. 

But union had long been impossible to the motley 
and turbulent population of Copts, Romans, Syrians, 
Jews, and students and refugees from all parts of 
the Empire. The Copts and the Syrians hated the 
Romans, and the Jews hated the Christians, with 
an enmity on which no common peril could act 
as solvent : while all would have laughed to scorn 
the idea that between the different races, classes, 
and creeds there could be any bond of patriotism, 
which alone might have given them cohesion. It is 
therefore not surprising to learn that the city fell 
through treason. 

During the period of investment the baffled 
Persians wreaked their fury on the country round, 
particularly upon the monasteries. Story tells of no 
less than six hundred monasteries in the neighbour- 
hood of Alexandria, all built *with keeps like the 
towers used for dovecotes \' Confident in the 

^ Severus of Ushmunain, Brit. Mus. MS. p. 100; Paris MS. 
p. 87. Similar keeps still exist at the monasteries in the Wadi 'n 
Natrun. That there was a very large number of monasteries near 
Alexandria is undoubted. In an ancient Coptic document translated 
by Am^lineau {Histoire des Monaster es de la Basse Egypte^ P- 34) 
Macarius says that he spent three years in the monasteries round 
about Alexandria, where he lived among remarkable men filled with 
every virtue to the number of 2,000. This was in the fourth 
century, and by the seventh the number of monks had largely grown. 
Even as early as 485 we read in the Chronicle of Zachariah of 
Mitylene that after the publication of Zeno's Henoticon 30,000 
monks and ten bishops met at the ' Martyr Church of St. Euphemia' 
without the walls of Alexandria, where, after resolving not to enter 
the city for fear of creating a riot, they deputed Bishop Theodore 
with seven other bishops and 200 archimandrites to wait on the 
Patriarch Peter, and to confer with him in the cathedral. This 
record would show that there is a substantial basis of truth in 
Sevems' statement. 



74 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

security of these convent castles, the monks not 
only neglected all precautions for safety but ventured 
on acts of open defiance against the enemy. But a 
host of Persians, advancing from the west \ where 
their camp lay, surrounded the walls and quickly 
battered down their rude defences. Nearly every 
man within them was put to the sword, only a very 
small remnant escaping by hiding in holes and 
corners. All the treasure and all the furniture in 
the monasteries was taken as plunder : churches 
and buildings were broken down or set on fire, and 
so fell into ruins, which remained visible till long 
after the invasion of the Arabs. 

But among the precious spoil taken by the enemy, 
what became of those priceless literary treasures 
which filled the monastic libraries ? No sure answer 
can be given : but while many libraries perished, 
some certainly escaped destruction. Most important 
of all, the great Ennaton monastery was left in 
security owing to its distance from Alexandria, 
and it is highly probable that its collection of 
books and manuscripts remained uninjured. The 
survival of the monastery is proved by the fact 
that the Patriarch Simon (a. d. 694) came from 
it and was buried in it^; and as Simon was born 
a Syrian and was renowned for his theological 
studies, it is clear that the monastery retained its 
Syrian connexion as well as its repute for learning. 

^ I have followed Severus, whose language implies either that 
most of the monasteries lay to the east of the city, which hardly 
agrees with what we know from other sources, or that the Persian 
forces had worked right round Alexandria, so as to attack it from 
the west or south-west. 

^ Von Gutschmidt's Kleine Schriften^ ii. p. 501. The convent of 
Al Ziijaj named by Severus is of course the same as the Ennaton, 
as I have shown. 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 75 

It IS frequently mentioned in subsequent history. 
Another monastery which survived was Dair Kibrius, 
which lay to the north-east of Alexandria on the 
coast \ The range therefore of the devastation 
wrought by the Persians round the Great City was 
singularly limited : for during the siege they were 
either too busy or too indolent to send marauding 
parties a few miles across the desert sands to vex 
the sequestered shelters of the monks. The great 
group of convents which they sacked and ruined 
must have been almost or actually within view of 
the Persian encampment. 

Here, however, we must part company with 
Severus. He alleges that, when tidings of the 
destruction of the monasteries and the slaughter 
of the monks reached Alexandria, the inhabitants 
in a mad panic opened the gates of the city. The 
Persian Salar, or commander-in-chief, had had a 
dream in which some mighty personage appeared, 
promised to deliver the city into the hands of the 
Persians, and cautioned him not to treat the city 
leniently and not to let any of the inhabitants escape, 
as they were heretics and hypocrites. Thereupon 
the Salar, or Shahln as we may call him, made all 
the able-bodied men, from eighteen to fifty years 
of age, come out of the city on the pretence of 

^ Severus at the beginning of his Life of Benjamin expressly 
records the escape of this monastery from the Persians. The Abbot 
Theonas in the course of the story remarks that he had then, in 622, 
Kved for fifty years in the monastery. This Theonas must be 
a different person from the Theonas, steward of the Ennaton, 
to whom Sophronius wrote an ode about 605, which ode is still 
extant (Migne, Pair. Gr. t. 87 (3)). The Cairo MS. of Severus 
gives the name of the monastery as {j^j^;^ or Kibrius = Cyprius, 
while the London MS. seems to give ^j^Jij^ or Kiranus, which is 
not likely to be correct. 



76 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

giving them two gold pieces a head ; and when 
they were all gathered together and their names 
were written down, he ordered his soldiers to fall 
upon them and slay them, to the number of eighty 
thousand. 

Such Is the improbable story. We may dismiss 
the vision with its absurd denunciation of heretic 
Christians to a Persian, though the language reveals 
the Monophysite sympathies of Severus and the 
complacency which he felt at the thought of whole- 
sale slaughter befalling the Melklte inhabitants of 
the Great City. But on the other hand the monks 
who perished were Monophysites or Copts, and 
the whole tone of Severus indicates hatred and 
abhorrence of the Persians; so that the story can- 
not be strained to countenance any sort of com- 
pact between the Copts and the Persians. More- 
over, brutal as the Persians were, it was wholly 
against their laws of war to massacre the Inhabitants 
of a city peaceably surrendered ^. The promise of 
a money payment and the inscription of eighty 
thousand names as preliminaries to the slaughter 
are obviously ridiculous, even were it conceivable 
that the city gates would be thrown open without 
the conclusion of a treaty guaranteeing the lives of 
the citizens. Quitting Severus, therefore, we return 
to the Syrian Chronicle, which gives a much more 
credible version of the capture. 

It will be remembered that the canal which 
supplied Alexandria at once with food and with 
water, after winding under the southern walls took 
a sharp turn to the north, and entering the city 
passed right across it till it reached the sea. Both 
entrances were closed by gateways strongly fortified 
* This is quite clear from the history of Sebeos. 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 77 

and defended by powerful engines of war. In time 
of siege the canal would be little if at all used for 
landward traffic, as it would be commanded and 
controlled by the enemy, at least where it lay 
out of the range of the garrisons artillery; and 
the besiegers would naturally have seized most of the 
corn-barges and shipping. But the seaward gate 
of the canal was constantly open, not merely for 
merchant vessels from the main, but for the many 
fishing boats which brought their daily burden to 
market. And as the gate abutted on the harbour, 
in which the Roman war-galleys rode unchallenged, 
it was doubtless somewhat laxly guarded. 

In this fact the traitor saw his opportunity. He 
stole without the walls, and, making his way to the 
Persian general's tent, there unfolded a plan for the 
capture of the Great City. It promised well and 
was adopted. The Persians procured a number of 
fishing-boats, filled them with soldiers disguised as 
'longshore fishermen, and sent them out to sea at 
dead of night. Well before daybreak the little craft 
stood in from the offing, and when they reached the 
northern gate they gave the password and moved 
unmolested on to the bridge, which carried the great 
main street of the city over the canal. Here, still 
in the dark, they seized their swords and disem- 
barked. Trusting to their disguise, they passed 
quietly down the main avenue westward till they 
reached the Moon Gate, where they suddenly fell 
on the unsuspecting warders and killed them. It 
was the w^ork of a moment. Ere the alarm could 
be given, they flung back the ponderous gates, 
and as day broke over the temples and palaces of 
Alexandria, the hordes of Shahin rushed in and pro- 
claimed the victory of Chosroes from the walls. 



78 The Arab Conquest oj Egypt 

The Syrian Chronicle goes on to say that all who 
could then took flight ; but that the ships on which 
the treasure of the churches and of the magnates 
had been placed as a measure of precaution were 
blown back by a storm and driven on to the shore 
by the Persian camp, i. e. westward of the city ^. 
All the gold and silver and jewels thus captured by 
the Persian army were sent, together with the keys 
of the city, to Chosroes. It is curious that there 
is no mention of the great massacre recorded by 
Severus ; but it is most improbable that in this 
the Egyptian writer, living in the midst of living 
traditions, could be wholly mistaken ; and moreover 
such a massacre, where a town was not peaceably 
surrendered under treaty of protection, fully accords 
with Persian practice. 

But it is clear that some kind of warning had 
prepared the city for Its fate. It was doubtless the 
warning of despair. The garrison must have been 
dangerously weakened by the withdrawal of troops 
to other parts of the Empire or even to Byzantium, 
as province after province had been ' trampled under 
foot by the Persians as an ox tramples the threshing- 
floor ^Z Moreover all the corn supplies of Egypt 
had been cut off from Alexandria ; and although the 
food of the citizens formed but a fraction of the 
enormous grain traffic which flowed through Alexan- 
dria to all parts of the Mediterranean, all the trade 

^ Called therefore ' the treasure of the wind.' But this story is 
told by the Arab writer Ibn Kutaibah (ninth century) of the ship in 
which Heraclius had placed his precious vessels and jewels when he 
resolved to quit Byzantium for Carthage. This ship was driven 
by storms, he says, to Alexandria, where it fell into the hands 
of the Persians. Kitdb al Mddrif^ &c., ed. Wiistenfeld; p. 329. 

^ The words of Severus. 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 79 

was outwards ; and when it ceased, it was idle to 
think of reversing the machinery — of converting 
exports to imports. Hence, as time wore on and 
stores diminished, while no relief came from Hera- 
clius, the pinch of want may well have been acute, 
and the people saw that they would ere long be 
forced to surrender from sheer starvation. This 
being the case, we are no longer puzzled by the 
flight of the governor Nicetas, whose valour, whose 
capacity for action, and whose loyalty to the Empire 
are alike unquestionable. It was * when Alexandria 
was about to be delivered over to the godless 
Persians ^ ' that Nicetas took ship for Byzantium 
in company with John the Almoner. They got as 
far as Rhodes, when the Patriarch was seized with 
illness, and foreboding his end, he sailed for Cyprus, 
where he landed and soon afterwards died at the 
place of his birth, Amathus, on November 11, 6172. 
That the Alexandrians had virtually abandoned 
all hope of deliverance must then be admitted ; and 

^ a)S CjaeXXcT/ 'AXc^avS/oeta rots d^eots Ue/oo-ats TrapaSiSocrOaL are the 
significant words of Leontius. 

^ See Lebeau's Histoire du Bas Empire^ Vol. xi. p. 53 : but 
it must be noticed that in this work the story of John is put long 
after the Persian conquest of Egypt, and therefore in wrong chrono- 
logical order. The Copts seem to have made John the Almoner 
into a martyr as well as a saint in later days, if Breydenbach is to be 
believed. He visited Egypt in the fifteenth century, and had a spot 
in Alexandria pointed out to him as the place of John's martyrdom. 
See his Descriptio Terrae Sanctae, Sec, p. 122 (fol. i486). Of course 
this legend springs from some confusion. John's death is actually 
commemorated on Nov. 12 by the Eastern Church, the nth 
being already assigned to St. Menas : see Von Gutschmidt's Kleine 
Schriften, ii. There is a slight sketch of the Patriarch by the 
Rev. H. T. F. Duckworth called St. John the Almsgiver (Blackwell, 
Oxford, 1 901). He states that John's body now rests in the 
cathedral at Pressburg. 



8o The Arab Conquest oj Egypt 

the action of Peter, the foreign student who betrayed 
them, probably hastened but little the inevitable 
doom of the city. All we know of the traitor is 
that he came from the region of Bahrain towards 
the north-east of Arabia; and we cannot be sure 
whether he was Christian, Jew or Pagan, or whether 
he had any other motive for his action than the 
ignoble desire to save his own head at whatever 
cost to the great seat of learning which had wel- 
comed him. We do know, however, that Bahrain 
was a province of Persia, and that even at a later 
date the inhabitants were described as mostly 
Persians and Jews\ So that there is some pre- 
sumption that he may have cloaked his treachery 
by patriotism. But the story is that he found in 
the city archives a book, at the end of which it 
was written — ' When trouble arises over Alexandria 
from the western gate, which lies towards the sea, 
then will the city be taken.' This prophecy, doubt- 
less manufactured after the event, though it would 
fit in with the capture by Nicetas in 609, discloses 
nothing of the traitor s motives or religious beliefs, 
though it does seem to mean that Peter knew the 
fate of the city to be sealed when he treated with 
the Persians for its betrayal. 

It was probably at the beginning of 618 that the 
keys of Alexandria were sent to Chosroes. Great 
as was the slaughter at the fall of the city, a large 
number of the inhabitants were spared, of whom 
some were sent into captivity in Persia 2, while 
others remained unmolested. Among the latter 
was the Coptic Patriarch Andronicus, who seems 

^ See De Goeje's Memoir e sur les Carmathes du Bahrain, p. 7. 
^ Prisoners from Alexandria are specially mentioned among those 
released after the capture of Dastagerd by Heraclius. 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 8i 

to have received the same measure of toleration as 
we know to have been bestowed on Modestus at 
Jerusalem- by direct order of the Persian King; but 
the shock of the scenes he witnessed and the havoc 
wrought among his people throughout the land of 
Egypt seem to have weighed him down with sorrow 
to the ending of his days ^ 

But, as we have seen, Andronicus was allowed to 
reside in Alexandria during his patriarchate owing 
to the fact that he possessed powerful relations, his 
cousin being Chairman of the Council of Alexandria 
at the time of his election. The fact is interesting, 
as proving that some of the Copts found their way 
to high office even under the rule of Heraclius ; and 
it further indicates that the Persians, in settling the 
country after their conquest, availed themselves of 
the service of the principal officials of the govern- 
ment which they overthrew. Later we shall see 
that the Arabs acted in precisely the same manner ; 
nor indeed could it be otherwise when an alien and 
less civilized army found itself responsible for a 
highly organized and complex administration. That 
the Copts fell in with this arrangement may be 
admitted ; it would have been mere folly to refuse ; 
but it is quite another thing to say, as the fashion 
is with modern writers, that the Persians were hailed 
as deliverers 2. Such a charge is not only ground- 
less ; it is a complete reversal of the truth. 

^ Severus of Ushmfinain's Life of Andronicus is nothing but 
a record of the calamities due to the Persian conquest, and he 
concludes with the words, * So when the Patriarch Andronicus had 
held his office for six years and had suffered from the barbarity of 
the Persians — when he had witnessed these terrible things, under- 
gone and endured them — he went to his rest.' 

^ This statement seems to come from Sharpe, who says, ' The 
troops with which Chosroes conquered and held Egypt were no 



82 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

For it must be remembered that the Persian army 
was flushed by a long career of plunder and slaughter, 
in which the victims were mainly Christians in formal 
union with the Coptic Church ; and it is unlikely 
that the Persians would befriend in Egypt those 
whom they slew in Syria : while the long resistance 
of Alexandria and the presence there of escaped 
refugees from the Holy Land would serve to whet 
their anger. There can be little doubt that the 
massacre was indiscriminate. On the other hand, 
Makrlzl alleges that there, as in Palestine, the Jews 
sided with the Persians. 'Chosroes and his soldiers,' 
he says, * came into Egypt, where they killed a very 
great number of Christians and made of them count- 
doubt in part Syrians and Arabs, people with whom the fellahs, 
or labouring class of Egyptians, were closely allied in blood and 
feelings. Hence arose the readiness with which the whole country 
yielded when the Romans were defeated. But hence arose also 
the weakness of the Persians and their speedy loss of this conquest 
when the Arabs rebelled ' {Hist, of Egypt ^ ch. xxi. p. 37). Mr. Milne 
has closely followed Sharpe, accentuating both statements, with one 
difference. His words are : ' The new governors of Egypt entered 
into their inheritance quietly (!) and almost naturally, as the Persian 
army was largely drawn from Syria and Arabia. . . . Thus they had 
no great difficulty in ruling Egypt : the wealthier classes had prob- 
ably a large intermixture of Arabs among them, who welcomed the 
rule of their kinsmen, while the fellahin at the worst only changed 
masters. . . . The revolt of the Arabs under the inspiration of the 
teaching of Mohammed deprived the king of Persia of his most 
effective soldiers and gave the Romans a chance of recovering 
Egypt' {Hist, of Egypt under Roman Rule, p. 114). Now these 
two statements, (i) that the people of Egypt welcomed the Persian 
invaders, (2) that the recovery of Egypt by Heraclius was due to 
a defection of the Arabs from Persia to Islam, are, I believe, equally 
and totally baseless. At best the first is pure fiction, while the 
second is but one step removed from fiction. It is to be regretted 
that Mr. Milne in his admirable work should adopt Sharpe's vague 
surmises. Mrs. Butcher i^Story of the Church of Egypt, vol. i. p. 3 4 7) 
does the same. 



'Persian Conquest of Egypt 83 

less captives: for the Jews helped them in their 
destruction of the Christians and their demolition of 
the churches ^' The context of this passage is, as 
usual, somewhat confused ; and inasmuch as it does 
not clearly distinguish between the Syrian and the 
Egyptian campaign, it may be argued that the action 
of the Jews refers only to the former. But there 
was always a large Jewish colony in Egypt and a 
Jewish quarter in Alexandria : and it is far more 
likely that the Jews welcomed another opportunity 
of aiding the enemies of the Cross than that the 
Copts showed any friendship for the idolaters whose 
hands were stained with the blood of their fellow 
believers in Antioch and in Jerusalem. Peter of 
Bahrain may have been a Jew and the agent of 
a Jewish conspiracy : and were it so, his action 
would be at least less ignoble and more easily 
explicable. 

But we are not dependent on deductions and sur- 
mises for a vindication of the Copts. It cannot be 
questioned that most of the monks who perished 
round about Alexandria were Copts : and if this fact 
stood alone it would serve to rebut the slanderous 
allegation that the Copts welcomed the Persians. 
But it does not. After the capture of Alexandria 
Chosroes' general marched his army southwards, 
ascending the Nile, for the subjugation of Upper 
Egypt. His treatment of the Copts was everywhere 
the same : everywhere his path was marked by death 
and devastation. When he reached the < city of 
Pshati or Nikiou 2, as Severus relates, some enemy 

^ Malan's trans., p. 68. 

* Quatremere {Mem. G/og. et Hist. t. i. pp. 420 seq.), in proving 
clearly the identity of Nikiou and Pshati, seems not to have known 
this passage of Severus, who says expressly, ' The city of Nakyiis, 

G 2 



84 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

of the Copts filled his ears with tales of the wealth 
and wickedness of the monks who dwelt in the caves 
and mountains, and at the same time told him that 
a great number of them were then assembled in 
the fortress^. Moved by these malignant stories, 
he surrounded the place by troops at night, and at 
sunrise they rushed in, fell upon the Christians, and 
slew them to the last man. 

It is not open to question that the monks here 
slain also were members of the Coptic Church. But 
what was done at Nikiou was repeated in Upper 
Egypt : and it so happens that here we possess a 
record even older and more authentic than Severus 
— a record in fact practically contemporary with the 
events it chronicles. For at the time of the Persian 
conquest there was at the town of Coptos in Upper 
Egypt a bishop of that diocese named Pisentios, 
whose biography fortunately remains and has been 
translated from the Coptic by M. Am^lineau 2. The 
story of Pisentios has so many points of interest that 
it may be given somewhat fully without apology. 

It is known that it was customary every year for 
the Patriarch of Alexandria to write an encyclical 
announcing the date of the coming Easter. A frag- 

which is also called Ibshadi/ using of course the Arabic forms. 
But Quatremere's note is well worth reading. I have already 
shown that the site of Nikiou is to be found at the modern 
Shabshir, and not at the village of Ibshadi, which has no ancient 
remains. 

^ The fortress doubtless resembled that at Babylon in enclosing 
a number of Coptic churches. The town was the seat of a famous 
bishopric, and the gathering recorded by Severus was some kind of 
convocation on Church business or for a great festival. 

^ l&tude sur le Chrisiianisme en J^gypte au Septieme Siecle (Paris, 
1887). The work is also called in the ' tirage a part' Vie (fun 
Eveque de Keft au Septieme Siecle, 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 85 

ment of such a letter, most beautifully written In 

uncials and dated about 577, is in the British Museum, 

and such letters or fragments are fairly common. 

The biography of PIsentlos relates that about the 

time of the Persian invasion, on receipt of the 

Patriarch's letter, PIsentlos wrote a pastoral to all his 

diocese. In which he said, * Because of our sins God 

has abandoned us ; he has delivered us to the nations 

without mercy ^' He had heard of the arrival of the 

fire- worshippers, and was thoroughly alarmed by the 

stories of their barbarity. Having no mind to play 

the martyr, he resolved on flight ; and when he had 

put all in order and distributed his goods to the poor, 

he went with his faithful disciple John to Mount 

GemI In the neighbourhood. This was done before 

the enemy appeared In Upper Egypt, and therefore 

not in a moment of sudden panic. It was the 

leisurely act of a man who knew that to remain at 

his post was to pourt death. The idea of seeking 

protection from the Persians by submission, or of 

claiming friendship from them, never entered the 

mind of the bishop : and his action is In ludicrous 

contrast with the theory that the Copts welcomed 

the Persians. 

When PIsentlos and John fled to the mountain, 
they laid in a good store of bread and Nile water. 
As soon as their water was gone, they suffered 
greatly, not venturing near the river : till at last 
Pisentios crept down by night to replenish. They 
stayed a long time in this retreat, * praying night and 
day that God would save the people from bondage 
to those cruel nations.' This was before Coptos had 
been taken : but then, when it fell, PIsentlos fled 
three miles further into the rocky desert. There 
^ Am^lineau, op. cit., p. 30. 



86 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

on a mountain-side the two friends found an open 
doorway, which they entered. Within was a chamber 
some 70 ft. square and high in proportion, hollowed 
out of the solid rock, and supported by six piers or 
columns. It was the burial-place of a vast number 
of mummies, which lay there undisturbed in their 
coffins or cases. 

Here Pisentios resolved to live alone, directing 
John to depart and to return with a measure of meal 
and with water once a week. As John was about to 
leave the cave, he saw a roll of parchment which 
he gave to the bishop. The bishop on reading it 
found that it contained the names of all those whose 
bodies were laid to rest in that burial-place. It has 
been generally taken for granted ^ that the roll was 
written in hieroglyphics, and it is hence argued that 
the knowledge of hieroglyphic writing survived 
among the Copts till at least the seventh century. 
But this is not stated in the Coptic biography. The 
story goes on to tell how, when John returned, 
he heard his master talking in the cavern, and 
listening discovered that he was speaking w^ith one 
of the mummies, which had come out of its case to 
demand the bishop's intercession : for the mummy 
declared that all its kith and kin had been Greeks 
and worshippers of the pagan gods. But this legend 
rather shows that the mummies were as 4ate as the 
second or third century — as is indicated also by the 
fact that some were shrouded in the * pure silk of 
kings' and by the separate embalming of the fingers : 
and it is at least a possible inference that the roll 
was written in Greek characters ^. 

■^ By Am^lineau and others. Dr. Wallis Budge seems of the 
same opinion. 

2 I cannot quite dismiss the idea that, even if we take the 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 87 

When the mummy had done speaking, It went 
back to its coffin : but unfortunately we are told 
nothing more about the Persians — what they did 
after the taking of Coptos, or how long they 
remained In Upper Egypt. PIsentlos ultimately 
got back to his flock, and when he died, was burled 
after a solemn vigil over his remains in the church 
at Psenti. On his deathbed he bequeathed all his 
books to his friend Moses, who succeeded him in the 
bishopric, and was the author of his biography. 
Both bishops were clearly men of some learning: 
but as usual with these Coptic writers, their whole 
mind is concentrated on childish fairy tales of 
wonders wrought by the saints. Their sole delight 
is in the miraculous and impossible : and It is only 
by some strange oversight or accident that they 
record any fact whatever relating to the great 
movements of history which they witnessed, and 
which they knew to Involve the fate of their 
country. 

But we learn two things clearly from this story — 
first that the Persians spread up the whole valley of 
the Nile to Syene ; and next that, so far from being 
hailed as deliverers by the Copts, they were regarded, 
and justly regarded, with the utmost alarm and 
abhorrence. 

The life of Pisentlos was written in the seventh 
century. Of the same tenour is another document, 
dating from somewhat later in the same century, 
which shows in even stronger colours what the Copts 
suffered from the Persians. I refer to the life of 
the well-known Coptic saint, Anba Shanudah^, 

hieroglyphics for granted, the ability of Pisentios to read them is 
recorded as another instance of his miraculous power. 

^ Amelineau, Monuments pour servir a Vhisioire de VEgypte 



88 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

a work which has only recently been brought to 
light. These are the words in which the biographer 
records the Persian invasion — words uttered in the 
form of a prophecy, but written at a time when old 
men still living could remember the events recorded : 
* The Persians shall come down into Egypt and shall 
make great slaughter : they shall plunder the goods 
of the Egyptians and shall sell their children for gold 
— so fierce is their oppression and their iniquity. 
Great calamities shall they cause to Egypt : for they 
shall take the holy vessels from the churches and 
drink wine before the altar without fear, and they 
shall dishonour women before their husbands. The 
evil and the suffering shall be very great: and of 
the remnant one-third shall perish in distress and 
affliction. Then after a while the Persians shall 
leave Egypt.' 

No evidence could be clearer or more conclusive. 
It utterly destroys Sharpens theory that the Copts 
welcomed the Persians, as well as*his theory resting 
that imaginary fact on an imaginary kinship between 
the Egyptian people and the Persian forces. Severus 
too sums up his remarks about the Persian general 
by saying, *this Salir wrought many deeds of cruelty, 
for he did not know God : but time is too short to 
relate all his actions.' Before this passage was 
known, above all before these two almost contem- 
porary documents came to light, history seemed 
singularly silent about the episode of the Persian 
invasion : but on the silence of history was founded 

Chreh'enne (Paris, 1888). The text in Arabic is taken from MSS. 
collated in Egypt: they are all from a Coptic original composed 
about 685 or 690. Shanftdah himself died July 2, 451 : and the 
prophecies put in his mouth were of course written after the events, 
but while the memory of them was fairly fresh. 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 89 

an airy fabric of conjecture most unjustly disparaging 
to the Copts. That now falls. 

But the Persians remained ten or twelve years 
in possession of the conquered country. It seems 
to have taken them three years ^ to spread their 
dominion over the length and breadth of Egypt 
and Pentapolis, although there is no record of any 
serious or prolonged resistance except at Alexandria : 
and this lapse of time goes far to account for the 
discrepancy in the chronology of the period. But 
although during the work of conquest the Persians 
acted with a kind of frenzied barbarity, as soon as 
their rage was glutted and the work done, their 
rule was far from tyrannical. When therefore the 
Byzantine garrisons, or the remnant of them, were 
driven out of the Nile valley and escaped oversea, 
the Copts settled down in a measure of tranquillity 
under one more of those changes of masters which 
had constituted their political history from time 
immemorial. 

So, when peace was established, the native Church, 
which had been harried and plundered and In places 
blotted out, was now left alone and enabled to 
recover in part from its wounds. Andronicus, how- 

^ See Abu '1 Faraj (ed. Pococke, p. 99), who mentions the term 
of three years. The great distances to be covered by the army of 
occupation postulate a corresponding time. Mistakes constantly 
arise in dealing with authors who summarize in a sentence and 
a date the results of a process which required months or even years 
for its accomplishment. Here, for example, it is extremely prob- 
able that the Persian conquest extended over the years 616-618 or 
619. Some writers accordingly give the date of its commencement ; 
others the date of its conclusion : and the discrepancy, though only 
apparent, serves to mislead critics who are a little wanting in thought 
or imagination. A Hke discrepancy concerning the duration of the 
occupation may be explained in like manner. It is given as ten and 
as twelve years, and probably both statements are in a measure right. 



90 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

ever, did little or nothing towards the rebuilding 
of the ruined monasteries. It is more than likely 
that the Persians laid a tribute on the Church 
revenues, or at least confiscated the endowments 
of the banished Melkite establishment. But, as 
regards civil buildings, the behaviour of the Persians 
was less ruthless than elsewhere. In Syria, it must 
be repeated, all through the war with the Roman 
Empire, they spared all the towns and the people 
that surrendered peaceably : while, in case of resist- 
ance, the custom was not merely to sack the captured 
places of every movable treasure, but to demolish 
the very buildings for the sake of beautiful columns 
or friezes or precious marbles, which they sent to 
adorn some palace of the Great King. Egypt was 
at least protected from vandalism of this sort by its 
very remoteness. For the Byzantines were still in 
command of the sea ; the Delta was covered with 
a network of unbridged waterways ; and between 
Egypt and Syria lay long stretches of sandy desert : 
so that heavy transport was practically impossible 
from one country to another. Moreover there is 
explicit evidence that the splendid public buildings 
of Alexandria were for the most part left uninjured 
by the Persians, whatever may have happened to the 
monasteries without the walls. Indeed the invaders 
were probably remembered rather as builders than 
as destroyers in the capital, where a palace they 
erected was long known as the ' Palace of the 
Persians ^' It would seem that their destructiveness 

^ Chronicon Orientale. Severus also says that the Salar 'built 
at Alexandria the palace called Tarawus, now named Fort of the 
Persians^ The fort is also mentioned by Barhebraeus {Ckron. 
Eccl. t. i. ch. 362) in a passage which seems to indicate that it was 
at the landing-place for passengers coming in ships from the east. 



Persian Conquest of Egypt 91 

in other places has been exaggerated. Gibbon, for 
example, alleges that Cyrene and Barca were finally 
extinguished at this time by the Persians : whereas 
a few years later the Arabs at least found those 
cities worth a fresh conquest, nor were they now 
even extinguished in the sense that they were finally 
sundered from the Roman Empire. There is no 
ground at all for the statement that their fate 
differed from that of Egypt, which for a while 
was annexed to the realms of Chosroes, but was 
destined to revert to the crown of Heraclius before 
passing for ever under the dominion of Islam \ 

Few facts are known about the Persian occupation 
of Egypt. It is clear, however, that the conquerors 
were not fanatical enough to force the worship of fire 
on the conquered 2, and that here as in Palestine and 
in Arabia, when their rule was established, it was based 
on principles of religious toleration. Just as Modestus 

Severus distinctly says the fort was at Alexandria, or one would be 
inclined to place it at some little distance. Indeed from Suyuti and 
others it is clear that it was not within the city walls. 

^ The Arab historians prove most clearly that Cyrene and Barca 
were held for the Empire and wrested from the Empire at the time 
of the Saracen invasion. 

^ In the Life of the Abbot Samuel there is an isolated story that 
the barbarians (i. e. obviously the Persians) tried to force him to 
worship the sun. When he refused, he was tied to a negress. But 
having cured the illness of his captor's son, he was released and 
returned to his monastery, where he died after predicting the arrival 
of the Arabs (which he may have seen) and their defeat by the 
Christians (which he did not see), ^qq Journal Asiatique, 1888, 
pp. 384-5. But it is clear that the cult of Mithra was definitely 
established in Egypt during the Persian occupation, as is proved by 
many rude monuments, found at Memphis and other places, which 
are now in the Cairo Museum. The rays of the sun about the 
head, and the Phrygian cap, show that the figures sculptured are 
meant for Mithra. 



92 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

was allowed by direct order of Chosroes to collect 
money and to rebuild the churches of Jerusalem, 
and the Coptic Patriarch was left in undisturbed 
possession of his see and allowed to reside in 
Alexandria till his death ; so it seems that his suc- 
cessor Benjamin was peaceably elected, and passed 
the first years of his long and stormy pontificate in 
comparative tranquillity under the shelter of the 
Persian government. And as the stately splendour 
of the streets and public buildings in Alexandria 
suffered little at the hands of the Persians, so the 
fame of the Great City as the home of learning if 
dimmed was unextinguished. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ART AND LITERATURE 

History, medicine, theology. The visit of John Moschus. 
Alexandrian libraries. Cosmas the Student. Astronomy. Archi- 
tecture. Painting, mosaic, and opus Alexandrinum. Illumination 
of books. Sculpture. Ivory. Metal-work. Pottery. Paper and 
glass. Textiles. Trade. Ships and shipping. 

The literature of this period in Egypt is very 
scanty, although there was more writing than one 
is apt to imagined Some authorities aver that 
John Philoponus was still living at Alexandria: 
but, though this is erroneous 2, the influence of his 
theology or his heresy was still felt, and the Patri- 
arch Sergius found it worth his while to denounce 
John's speculations in concert with George of Pisidia^ 
Though no original thinker, John had been a real 
student in many branches of learning, and some of 
his notes on Aristotle are still extant. It was at 
this time that a priest of Alexandria named Aaron 
wrote in Syriac the medical treatises which remained 
in great repute among the Arabs, as recorded by 
Abu '1 Faraj \ 

Indeed the physicians of Alexandria had long 
been famous, and the school of medicine there was 

^ A slight chapter on literature in the reign of Heraclius may be 
found in Prof. Bury's History of the Later Roman Empire^ vol. ii. 
pp. 254-7. On the state of learning at Alexandria, see Matter, 
Ecole d* Alexandrie, passim. 

^ Philoponus is shown to belong to the sixth century by 
A. Nauckius, Encycl. Halensis^ sect. iii. t. xxiii. p. 465. See also my 
chapter below on the fate of the Alexandrian Library. 

^ Drapeyron, VEmpereur Heraclius^ P* 293. 

* Ed. Pococke, p. 99. 



94 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

frequented by students from all parts of the Empire. 
Thus, speaking of the sixth century, Zachariah of 
Mitylene notes that the court physician to Basiliscus 
was an Alexandrian : and in another passage he 
tells of Sergius ^ — an arch-physician of Rhesaina — 
who was not only * practised in reading many books of 
the Greeks,' but had ' studied divinity and medicine 
at Alexandria, for he was skilled in Syriac reading 
and speaking ^.' This seems to show a special 
connexion between the study of medicine and the 
Syriac language, and to render it probable that in 
the sixth or in the seventh century the principal 
works on medicine were in Syriac. And it is past 
question that the Syriac tongue was in constant i^se 
and Syriac literature under constant study in Alex- 
andria, quite apart from the fact that at this period 
the Persian occupation of Syria had driven shoals of 
scholars from that country to Egypt. 

It is curious that both Sergius and Aaron were, 
like the Patriarch Eutychius, learned in divinity as 
well as in medicine. But there is the clearest 
evidence that an independent school of theology 
flourished. Just before the Persian invasion we 
find Syrian scholars correcting the Syriac version 
of the New Testament and newly translating the 
Septuagint into Syriac. Thomas of Harkel and 
Paul of Telia are the two chief names mentioned in 
connexion with this work ^, which was mainly carried 

^ One Sergius is also mentioned by Abii '1 Faraj as having added 
two to the thirty treatises composed by Aaron* But he must be 
a different person. 

* Zachariah of Mitylene, p. 266. 

^ See Diet. Christ, Biog., s. v. Some information about these 
scholars is also given in Sharpe's History of Egypt , ch. xxi. p. 38. 
Sharpe makes them work at the monastery of St. Anthony and 
St. Zacchaeus near Alexandria, but he seems to have misunderstood 



Art and Literature 95 

on at the celebrated Ennaton monastery. That 
there was great activity in Biblical studies needs no 
proof. But Agathias shows the amazing dishonesty 
to which theological controversy could condescend : 
for he mentions an Augustal prefect who employed 
fourteen scribes or copyists in the task of corrupting 
the writings of the Fathers, particularly Cyril, so 
that from published texts the highest authority 
could be quoted for the form of heresy which the 
prefect favoured. It is to be hoped that such frauds 
were rare : but this happened about the beginning 
of the seventh century, when sectarian religion was at 
the height of its strange ascendency over morality. 
Not only the Ennaton, however, but nearly every 
monastery had its library and its students. Probably 
the still surviving Dair Surianl — or the Syrian 
Convent ^ — in the Natrun desert owes its foundation 
to this period, when so much of Syrian life and 
learning was removed to Egypt under stress of the 
Persian wars. And everywhere in the mountains 
and deserts, far from the intellectual life of the 
capital, monks and anchorites wrote in Coptic their 
controversial treatises, biographies of patriarchs, and 
but too rarely historical chronicles. 

Of actual history written at this time but little 
remains. Theophylact Simocatta has left some 
useful records; but, though an Alexandrian, he 
scarcely mentions his native city : while the un- 
known writer of the Chronicon Paschale or Alex- 
andrinum has left a contemporary document of the 

his authority. I have spoken more fully on the visit of these Syrian 
students and of their work in the Appendix on the Chronology 
of the Persian Conquest ; q. v. 

^ See Ancient Coptic Churches, vol. i. p. 316, for a description of 
this monastery. 



96 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

greatest interest and value. The work of John of 
NIkiou, though written late In the seventh century, 
was certainly founded on earlier works, of which 
even the record has perished. 

This list of names, though it implies the study of 
history, philosophy, theology and medicine, is never- 
theless a poor one, and gives no Idea of the 
manifold activities of intellectual society at Alex- 
andria. Most of the writings of the time doubtless 
perished in the great hurricanes of conquest which 
swept over Egypt during the first half of the seventh 
century. But there Is evidence enough to show 
that Alexandria might still claim to be the capital of 
the world of letters and the centre of culture. For 
although much of the learning of the place was 
theological, nevertheless the traditions of classical 
study still flourished. Essays In Christian idealism 
or Christian ethics were consciously based on Pla- 
tonic or Aristotelian doctrine; and just as Paul the 
Silentiary had described the glories of St. Sophia 
in Homeric hexameters, so now Sophronlus, writing 
from Alexandria, thought it no shame to pour out 
his passionate longing for the Holy Places in Ana- 
creontic lyrics ^. 

It so happens that some interesting details of life 
in Alexandria at this time are preserved In the 
writings of John Moschus. These details are not 
enough to fill a large canvas, and they are given 
more by accident than by design of the writer, yet 
the picture they form Is curious. John Moschus 
was a Syrian by birth, though Greek was his native 
language. He travelled for some years in Egypt 
with his pupil and friend Sophronlus, a native of 
Damascus, towards the close of the sixth century, 
^ Migne, Pair. Gr. t. 87. 



Art and Literature 97 

and they spent a great deal of time together in the 
monasteries of the Thebaid or Upper Egypt. When 
they returned to their own country, John prevailed 
on Sophronius to take the order of monkhood. 
They are said to have been driven out of Syria in 
605 during the wars of Phocas, and to have gone to 
Alexandria, where they spent a further period of 
eight or ten years, reading and writing and making 
frequent excursions to the monasteries about the 
city and in the desert and the great Oasis. Both 
scholars were friends of John the Almoner, though 
that prelate seems to have been far below them 
in intellectual stature, and like him they fled from 
Alexandria at the time of the Persian invasion. 
It is even related that they accompanied the Al- 
moner to Cyprus, and that on his death Sophronius 
preached his funeral sermon, though the evidence is 
against this story. It is certain that they travelled 
among the Greek islands and ultimately found their 
way to Rome, where John Moschus put the finishing 
touches to his work, and upon his deathbed gave it 
to Sophronius to publish. About the year 620, 
when the peaceable practice of their religion had 
been restored to the Christians under Persian rule, 
Sophronius went back to Palestine, and in due 
course published the volume which still survives 
under the name of * Spiritual Pastures V 

While much of this work with its stories of 
miraculous cures and visions is valueless to the 
historian, yet by dint of search one comes upon 
some really delightful pieces of information. There 
is too a kind of scholar-gipsy flavour about the 

^ Aetfioiv HvevfiaTiKos, better known under its Latin title Pratum 
Spirituale. See Migne, Patr. Gr. t. 87 (3), and Diet. Christ. Biog., 
s.v. Sophronius. 

BUTLER JJ 



98 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

book which redeems even the more tedious parts 
from dullness. Some points in Alexandrian topo- 
graphy will be noticed in a later chapter : we may 
here remark on the intense intellectual curiosity 
which almost every page reveals. The two friends 
were restless in their quest after knowledge, as their 
travels show, even if some of their journeys were on 
Church business ^. At one moment they are talking 
in Alexandria with the bishop of Darna (or Darnis) 
on the Libyan coast, at another with the Abbot 
Theodore the Philosopher, or again with Zoilus the 
Reader. Both Theodore and Zoilus were men of 
exceptional learning and character, and the Abbot 
as well as the Reader was very poor. Of both it 
is recorded that they possessed nothing but a 
mantle and a few books. While Theodore studied 
philosophy, Zoilus practised the art of illuminating 
manuscripts 2. At the Ennaton monastery ^, near 
Alexandria, they found a venerable abbot who had 
spent eighty years in monastic life. He was a lover 
of men, but was further distinguished by a very rare 
quality — love of animals. Every day he fed the 
birds of the air, the ants great and small, and 
the very dogs that prowled about the monastery. 
But whereas Theodore and Zoilus clung to their 
books, when they parted with all besides, the animal- 
lover could never keep a coin or a garment or 
even a book : all he had was given away to the 
needy ^ 

But the most keenly interesting and the most 
tantalizing passage in John Moschus is one that 

^ The phrase wc^eXetas x<^ptv is taken to mean * on business,' but 
it may mean ' for our (intellectual) advancement,' i. e. * for purposes 
of study/ 

' John Moschus, cap. 171. ^ Id., cap. 184. * Id., ib. 



Art and Literature 99 

describes the intimacy with Cosmas the Student^ 
enjoyed by the two friends: for John most fre- 
quently writes in the plural, associating himself with 
Sophronius, his companion in travel and study alike. 
The passage is so remarkable that something like 
a transcription of it may be pardoned. 

'Of Cosmas the Student/ says John, *we shall 
write nothing from hearsay — only what we have seen 
with our own eyes. He was a simple-minded man, 
abstemious and clean-living: he was easy-tempered 
and sociable, given to hospitality, a friend of the 
poor. He rendered us the very greatest service 
not only by his speculation ^ and his teaching, but 
because he possessed the finest private library in 
Alexandria and freely lent his books to all readers^. 
He was very poor, and the whole of his house, 
which was full of books, contained no furniture but 
a bed and a table. His library was open to all 
comers. Every reader could ask for the book he 
wanted, and there read it. Day by day I visited 
Cosmas, and it is mere fact that I never once 
entered his house without finding him engaged 
either in reading, or in writing against the Jews. 
He was very reluctant to leave his library, so that 
he often sent me out to argue with some of the 
Jews from the manuscript he had written. 

*Once I made bold to ask him a question and 

■^ 6 o-;(oXao-TiKos. Id., cap. 172. 

"^ The word is ^ecopov/xevos, which in Migne is rendered as a passive 
and so * by his presence ' : but the term was still used of the philo- 
sophic ^ccopta : e. g. John of Constantin * became a gnostic and a 
theoretic,' says Zachariah of Mitylene, p. 211. 

^ 8ia TO etvat avrov iroXv^i^Xov virep TravTas tovs cv 'AXc^ai/8/oeia 
ovTas Kol TTpoOvfxw's Trapaa")(€'iv rots OeXovaiv. Unhappily the original 
contains no suggestion of contrasting private and public libraries in 
the city. 

LufC. H2 



loo The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

said, "Will you be so kind as to tell me how long 
you have lived in this retreat ? " But he held his 
peace and made no answer. Then again I said, 
" In the Lord s name tell me *' ; and after some 
hesitation he replied, " For three and thirty years." 
When further pressed, Cosmas remarked that the 
three principal things he had learned in his studies 
were '* not to laugh, not to swear, and not to lie." ' 

Such is the charming picture of a poor scholar 
in Alexandria keeping open house for book-lovers ^. 
It is, as I have said, a tantalizing picture, and 
mainly for two reasons. First of all, not a word 
is said about the class or classes of books which 
the library contained, or about their number : and 
then, next, it is a grievous disappointment that John 
Moschus and Sophronius, with all their love of 
literature, with all their interest in books and book- 
collectors, tell us absolutely nothing about the great 
and famous public library of Alexandria. Was it, 
or was it not, still in existence .^^ They stand on 
the very edge of the subject, and could, if they 
would, utter the word that would solve the still 
baffling mystery : but they turn away in silence and 
are gone. 

Of course their very silence, coinciding as it does 
with the silence of so many other writers, has its 
own logic ; but this is not the proper place for a 
discussion upon the date of the disappearance of 
the great library. Such a discussion will come later 
in this work. At present one can only deplore the 
fact that neither John Moschus in Spiritual Pastures, 
nor Sophronius in any of his fairly voluminous 

^ In the Cairo Museum is an interesting monument to a book- 
lover of this epoch. On the lid of a sarcophagus, sculptured in 
relief, is the figure of a student grasping in each hand a roll of MS. 



i 



Art and Literature ioi 

writings which remain, gives a single hint with 
regard to the existence or non-existence in his 
lifetime of the library in the Serapeum. 

But so valuable is every scrap and fragment of 
evidence about the books of Alexandria at or near 
this period that I may be pardoned for here recording 
another collection — that made by the Syrian bishop 
of Amida, Moro Bar Kustant, in the first half of 
the sixth century. He is described as * fluent and 
practised in Greek/ but 'after remaining a short 
time in his see, he was banished first to Petra and 
thence to Alexandria. There he stayed for a time, 
and there formed a library containing many ad- 
mirable books, in which is abundance of great profit 
for those who love knowledge, for men of under- 
standing and students. These books were transferred 
to the treasury of the church of Amida after his 
death. He progressed more and more in reading 
in Alexandria, and there fell asleep.' From this 
interesting passage in Zachariah of Mitylene^ we 
may draw at least two conclusions — that Alexandria 
was still a great place for the book collector, and 
that the exportation of books was not forbidden. 

But the intellectual interests of Alexandria were 
not limited to Greek literature or theology. The 
city of Ptolemy and Euclid was still famous for its 
devotion to astronomy, and for the skill of its 
students in mathematics and in mechanics. Astro- 
logy was still practised, and, postulating at least 
some knowledge of the stars, it was not without 
its use to science. When princes and rulers of the 
world sent to consult a monk in the desert about 
their future, they put their faith less in his saintliness 
than in his study of the planets. Nor were the 

^ p. 209. 



102 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

astrologers wanting in political influence. The most 
famous astronomer of this time was Stephen of 
Alexandria, whose book on astronomy remains. * He 
is also credited with the study of astrology : and if 
he forecast the coming empire of Islam \ it can 
scarcely be questioned that many of his credulous 
countrymen listened with an anxious sinking of 
the heart, and were weakened in their resistance 
in the hour of trial. But Stephen was a genius — 
universal philosopher and master, he is called, — and 
his astrology counts for little in his attainments. 
To the branches of learning which were studied 
at this time must be added geography. A great 
accession to the knowledge of the eastern seas had 
been made by the explorations of Cosmas, surnamed 
the Indian Navigator, a merchant adventurer of 
Alexandria, whom love of travel and discovery 
rather than love of gain had led to make long and 
scientific voyages round Arabia and India. Though 
he had died some years before this period, his works 
were in men's hands and were much valued : it is 
unfortunate for us that the greater and the most 
interesting part of them has perished 2. 

But if literary traditions were still cherished in 
Alexandria, it is even more true that the arts 
flourished. The architecture of the city with its 
noble walls and towers, its shining palaces, its stately 
churches, and colonnaded streets was truly mag- 

* H. Usener's monograph on Stephen of Alexandria leaves no 
doubt of his learning, but makes it pretty clear that this so-called 
prophecy is the invention of a much later period {De Stephana 
Alexandrind), 

"^ On Cosmas Indicopleustes see Matter, icole (fAlexandrie (t. ii. 
p. 381), — a work which contains a good deal of valuable informa- 
tion. 



Art and Literature 103 

nificent : and the skill of the builders had in no 
way fallen off from the days of Justinian when 
the great Hall of the Thousand and One Columns 
at Constantinople, which still survives, was built 
by an. Alexandrian. It was the capitals upon the 
columns in this hall which, according to Professor 
Freeman, completely broke with classical tradition 
and prepared the way for the magnificent con- 
struction of Anthemius at St. Sophia ^ Moreover, 
the green and red porphyry used to adorn that 
building was quarried in Egypt and floated down 
the Nile 2. From the days of the Pharaohs Egypt 
was renowned for its beautiful alabasters : and 
churches and palaces all oVer the world were 
decked with these costly marbles, the trade in 
which was centred in Alexandria, and there remained 
till the Arab conquest extinguished it. 

Painting as a fine art was ancillary to architecture, 
and was employed together with mosaic of coloured 
glass ^, mosaic of marble, marble panelling, and 

^ See, however, Lethaby and Swainson's S. Sophia^ Constantinople^ 
p. 249. 

^ * They loaded the boats on the bosom of the Nile ' says Paul 
the Silentiary. 

^ On the subject of glass mosaics in Egypt see Abxi Salih, p. 148, 
and my note. When I wrote the note, I was not aware that 
specimens of this work still survive in Egypt. But the head of 
the kiblah in the mosque of Ibn Tiahin still preserves its tenth- 
century glass mosaics set round with a purely classical border. 
One other instance occurs at the mosque of Shajarah ad Durr, 
and two at Al Azhar, viz. in the kiblah of At Tabarsiah and of Al 
Akhbuhaiah. These instances prove the rareness of the art, which 
was applied only on a very small scale to the adornment of the 
most splendidly decorated part of the Muslim building, but they 
prove also its survival to the fourteenth century. See the report 
of the Comite de Conservation des Monuments de I'Art Arabe, 
Exercise 1900 (Le Caire, 1900), by Max Hertz Bey, 



I04 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

marble pavements for the decoration of interiors. 
These arts — the art of building, the art of working 
in glass mosaic, and that form of marble work called 
characteristically opus Alexandrinum — were pre- 
served by the Copts long after they had passed 
under the dominion of the Arabs : and both the 
walls of the new capital Cairo and its splendid 
mosques were built and embellished by Egyptian 
architects, whose genius and whose methods came 
by direct descent from ancient Alexandria. 

Nor must the art of illuminating books be for- 
gotten. We have already seen that Simocatta 
speaks of a friend who was an illuminator, and 
John Moschus describes Zoilus as practising the 
same craft. The fact is that all over the East at 
this time ornamental writing and miniature painting 
in books were carried to great perfection. The most 
sumptuous of these manuscripts were on vellum, which 
was stained purple and then overwritten in letters 
of gold. Books of this kind were generally destined 
for the Emperor s own library. There is an extremely 
interesting letter from an Archbishop of Alexandria, 
Theonas, to one Lucianus, the Emperor's chief 
chamberlain and librarian, which one may here fitly 
produce, though it was written about a. d. 290. It 
gives first of all advice as to keeping accounts, the 
custody of robes and ornaments, the making of 
inventories for gold and silver plate, for crystal and 
myrrhine vases, and for all the palace treasures. 
Then it proceeds to say that the library is the most 
important thing of all. No Christian should despise 
secular literature, and the librarian must know all 
about the books. He must arrange them in 
systematic order with a catalogue : he must take 
care that all copies are faithful and true : and he 



Art and Literature 105 

must restore MSS. or illuminations where they 
are decayed. Finally, says Theonas, it is not 
essential that all books should be written in letters 
of gold on purple vellum ^, unless the Emperor 
makes this a special requirement. This letter at 
least shows that the Archbishop was familiar with 
the work oi a great and splendid library. In the 
three following centuries the art of illuminating 
spread rather than diminished, nor was there any 
great change of style up to the period of which we 
are treating. As in Europe in later days, so now 
in Egypt, much of this illuminating was done in 
the monasteries : and although the chief centres of 
production were Constantinople and Alexandria, yet 
at many places in Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and 
Persia might be found monks who spent their 
lives in writing precious books and adorning their 
pages with the richest splendour of design and 
colour 2. 

Of the sculpture of this time little is known 
beyond the fact that it was still customary to set 
up statues of the reigning Emperor not only in the 
capital but also in the chief provincial towns; 
whence it is clear that the art was not wholly lost ^. 
The Ptolemaic school of sculpture had been the 
first in the world at that time, and some of its 
works show a purely classical grace and refinement. 
Even in Christian times the tradition remained, as 
is shown for example by the magnificent colossal 

' See Cozza Luzi's Pergamene Purpuree. 

^ See the late Prof. Middleton's Illuminated Manuscripts (Cam- 
bridge, 1892), ch. iv. 

^ It was, however, destined to a rapid decay in Egypt under the 
Arabs and in the Byzantine Empire under the ignorant iconoclast 
Leo the Isaurian in the early eighth century. 



io6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

figure of an emperor sculptured in red porphyry 
now in the Cairo Museum^. 

There is no doubt, however, that by the sixth 
century the art of sculpture had fallen into decay. 
On the other hand, the peculiarly Byzantine art of 
ivory-carving attained its highest perfection, dis- 
playing marvellous taste and delicacy 2. So too 
the goldsmith's art and the art of enamelling on 
metal flourished in the great school of Alexandria. 
And as these crafts traced back their origin to the 
workers of ancient Egypt, so they were preserved 
long after the fall of Alexandria. In the Middle 
Ages they had a brilliant renaissance, and to this 
day they have never been extinguished. 

Among the industrial arts, which flourished in 
great vigour, may be mentioned paper-making, glass- 
blowing, weaving, and ship-building. Vast reed- 
beds of the tall and graceful papyrus plant grew in 
the thousand waterways of the Delta. Paper was 
formed of its pith, which was cut in slices, moulded 

^ The head is unfortunately missing, but the statue is thought 
to represent an emperor of the Later Empire, and Prof. Strzygowski 
regards it as Christian work. The drapery, pose, and finish are 
exceedingly good. As a specimen of earlier work, reference may 
be made to the admirable statue of Marcus Aurelius now in the 
Museum of Alexandria. 

2 See C. Diehl, La Civilisaiion Byzantine au VI^ Steele^ pp. 
651 seq. On p. 653 is an illustration from the 'chaire de 
Maximien,' on which work Diehl quotes Molinier's opinion: 
*Aucun monument d'ivoire de la p^riode ant^rieure ne nous 
montre une pareille entente de la decoration jointe a une habilet^ 
technique au-dessus de tout ^loge ' : and he goes on to show that this 
work, as well as the small jewels and reliquaries, embroideries, &c., 
is Egyptian in origin or inspiration. The great * Syro-Egyptian ' 
school of art exercised an enormous influence at this time on 
Byzantine art in general. The remarks of Diehl on architecture 
(p. 642) and on miniature painting (p. 650) are well worth reading, 
as indeed is the whole book. 



Art and Literature 107 

into sheets under pressure, and polished with an 
ivory burnisher : then the sheets were joined to 
form rolls of a manageable length. Enormous 
quantities of papyrus were exported from the busy 
quays of Alexandria : and it is not clear when the 
trade declined or what causes led ultimately to the 
total extinction of the plant in Egypt ^. The glass- 
works of Alexandria and of the Nitrian desert were 
long famous. Strabo says that the glass-workers 
of Egypt had their own secrets, especially in the 
factories at Diospolis; that they counterfeited 
precious stones and made myrrhine vessels. Glass 
was part of the tribute imposed by Augustus ^, and 
beautiful products of the art may be seen in the 
Alexandria Museum. It cannot be doubted that the 
craft was handed down among the Copts to mediaeval 
times, and its last result was the manufacture of 
those sumptuous enamelled lamps, which once 
adorned churches and mosques and now are the glory 
of mediaeval museums. At what period the manu- 
facture of porcelain arose is uncertain, but it was 
very early. A Persian traveller ^ who visited Fustat 
in 1047 A- 1^- speaks not only of the fine glass but of 
the beautiful faience which he saw made there, ' so 
fine and diaphanous that through the vessel may be 

^ Some interesting information, however, may be found in 
Mittheilungen a, d. Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer^ pp. loi seq. We 
learn that in the ninth century a roll of papyrus called ^j^j 
{xdpTTjs) cost 6 kirat, or the fourth of a dinar= about 2s. 6d. : while 
a tfimar, which was about 8 ft. 6 in. long, cost one-sixth of this, or 5^. 

^ See JVo/zce hisiorique de VArt de la Verrerie in the Napoleonic 
Description de VJ^gypie, Also Abii Salih, pp. 149--50. 

^ Relation du Voyage de Ndsiri Khusrau, from C. Schefer, p. 151. 
The ' wastes ' from the kilns often discovered among the rubbish 
mounds on the site of Fustat fully bear out the existence of the 
native manufactures. 



io8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

seen the hand that holds it': and he specially mentions 
Iridescent lustre-ware, resembling the shot silk fabric 
called bukalimun, which changed its hue according 
as the light fell on the surface. This evidence is 
very remarkable, as proving beyond question the 
high development of the potter s and glass-worker s 
art in Cairo in the eleventh century. It is clear that 
the later and better-known Hispano-Mauresque ware 
traces its origin back to Cairo. 

In textiles too there was a large trade and a great 
variety of fabrics. The finest linen was still woven, 
probably finer than anything wrought in the looms 
of ancient Egypt. Moreover, since the reign of 
Justinian silk had come into more common use^, 

^ Catalogue of Egyptian Textiles in S. K. M., by Alan Cole, 
1887, p. X. Silk in the third century was worth its weight in gold. 
By the fourth century Gregory of Nazianzen and other Christian 
writers denounce the use of silk as a growing luxury. By the 
middle of the fifth century silk had become so common that not 
merely the Emperor but all courtiers and wealthy men dressed 
in it. The streets and houses of Constantinople were all aflutter 
with pure silk on the occasion of the baptism of the infant 
Theodosius II: see Bury's Later Roman Empire^ vol. i. pp. 196, 
204; ii. pp. 96-7: see also vol. i. p. 472. In Egypt, however, 
silk was more largely used at an earlier date than in Europe. 
By the end of the fourth century silk shrouds were employed for 
mummies. See an article * On a Coptic Grave-Shirt ' by Dr. Wallis 
Budge in Archaeologia, vol. 53, pt. 2, p. 442 : and on the whole subject 
Yates* Textrinum Antiquorum there quoted. How general was the 
use of silk in the seventh century may be gathered from the pages 
of Ockley. Heraclius is said to have had * above 300 loads of dyed 
silks and cloths of gold' at Damascus (pp. 150, 156). Vestures 
of silk are very frequent among the spoils, and all the generals 
seem to have worn silk even on the field of battle. See pp. 170, 
172, 179, 185, 198, 211. Tapestry of scarlet silk flowered with 
gold is mentioned p. 226. Mas'udi says that awnings of green 
silk were hung over the streets of Alexandria as a protection 
against the glare from the marble buildings. 



Art and Literature 109 

and both in silk and linen sumptuous fabrics were 
produced, embellished with splendid embroideries. 
Many textiles, dating from about this time, have 
recently been discovered at Akhmim, the ancient 
Panopolis, in Upper Egypt, and are now in the 
South Kensington and other collections. These are 
nearly all linen or woven tapestry, and the style 
of ornamentation, which is in some cases quite 
.classical, in others is distinctly Christian, while yet 
a third class shows clear evidence of Persian 
influence. The ten or twelve years of the Persian 
occupation may well have brought Persian designs 
into fashion with the Coptic weavers. Just as in the 
Theodore Graf papyri at. Vienna, which range from 
487 to 909 A. D., the Greek, Coptic, Sassanid-Persian, 
Hebrew, and Arabic languages are found, so in this 
collection of textiles, covering about the same period, 
the political changes which passed over Egypt are 
reflected as in a mirror ^. It is exceedingly interesting 
to note further that the materials, as well as the 
designs and colours of specimens found at Sakkarah, 
in the Fayum, and in Upper Egypt are virtually 
identical. The fact proves not so much the con- 
servatism of the weavers as their community of 

^ Catalogue S. K. M. p. xiii. The whole of the introduction to 
this catalogue is well worth reading. See also Gerspach, Les 
Tapisseries Copies^ and Fower, R'dmische und Byzantinische Seiden- 
Texfilien. In his book called Le Costume en Agypte du III^ au 
XII ^ Siecle, Mons. A. Gayet dwells on the extraordinary fine- 
ness of the linen, silk, tapestry and embroidery of Egypt: but 
he accounts for the variety of national styles by the variety of 
races employed in Egypt. This theory I think is mistaken. 
The workers were Egyptian, but their style was affected by 
the succession of conquests and the varying tastes of the con- 
querors. On p. 247 M. Gayet shows an Assyrian design of 
exceptional interest. 



no The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

ideas. By the great highway of the Nile new pro- 
cesses and patterns passed quickly from guild to 
guild among the scattered towns of Egypt, and the 
produce of the looms was easily carried to the great 
markets of Memphis and Alexandria, or after a short 
caravan journey was shipped from the Red Sea port 
of Berenice. All these linens and tapestries, tissues 
interwoven with gold and needlework embroideries 
in fine colours, were the work of Coptic craftsmen : 
and the more the history of Egypt, both Byzantine 
and Saracen, is studied, the clearer becomes the 
truth that in all the handicrafts — in goldsmiths' work, 
in enamelling, in metal-work, in glass-work — and in 
every province of design and construction, it was 
the Copts who kept alive the artistic traditions of 
the country. 

At the same time it would be wrong to imagine 
that in skill and taste the Copts far outshone the 
artistic workers of the Byzantine Empire or those of 
Armenia, Assyria, and Persia. All over the East 
woven fabrics and embroideries, vessels of gold and 
silver, and jewels of exceedingly fine workmanship 
were produced : and fine as were the carpets made 
in Egypt, it is doubtful whether they rivalled the 
magnificent products of Persia^. So too some of 

* I may instance the well-known ' winter carpet ' of the Persian 
kings captured by the Muslims at Ctesiphon. It was 300 cubits 
long by 60 broad, and was used in winter when flowers were 
over. It had a white ground with a border of emeralds richly 
designed: every beautiful and sweet-scented flower and plant 
was wrought upon it in precious stones of divers colours. It 
was sent to Omar at Medina, who had it cut up in pieces and 
distributed among his generals. 'Alt sold his portion for 8,000 
dirhems (Tabari, ed. Zotenberg, vol. iii. p. 416). Tinnts, Kais, 
and other sea-coast towns in Egypt were the great centres for 
carpets and other textiles: see Quatrembre, Mim. Hist, et Geog, 



Art and Literature iii 

the finest illuminations were made not only in 
Byzantium, but in Persia and Mesopotamia. The 
most famous dye-works for the imperial purple were 
at Bostra in Syria, which was captured by the 
Persians and subsequently by the Arabs. We have 
seen that Chosroes was no semi-savage king, but 
a man of great culture : and the arts of the Sassanian 
Persians, while founded on the traditions of ancient 
Assyria and Babylon, not only vied with the arts of 
the Byzantine Empire in taste and refinement, but 
had perhaps a larger share in forming among the 
Arabs that school of design which in the Middle 
Ages rendered Damascus famous. 

But of all the industrial arts practised at Alex- 

t. i. pp. 141, 308, 335, 339. Cedrenus mentions linen, silk, 
and carpets among the spoil burnt by Heraclius at Chosroes' 
palace in Dastagerd. In the ninth century the Caliph Al Muntazar 
(who had slain his father Mutawakkal) was shown a carpet taken 
from the Persians, which bore the design of a crowned king on horse- 
back, and on the border the legend, * I am Shiriiyah, son of Khusrii : 
I slew my father and reigned only six months' (Or/(?«/a/ Collections, 
vol. i. no. iii. p. 224 n.). Damietta vied with Tinnts at this time, 
and for three or four centuries later, in the fineness and splendour 
of its gauzes, brocades, and cloths of gold : see Abii Salih, pp. 62-3 
and notes. Ya'kiibt writing circa 950 a. d. specifies various textiles 
then manufactured. In the Fayfim a coarse linen; at Kais 
garments called by the name of the town and excellent woollen 
materials ; at Bahnas^ veils or curtains called Bahnast ; fine tissues 
at Ahnas; crimson carpets at Siilt; small carpets or rugs and 
leathern goods at Akhmim; at Shata fine linen; at Tinnts the 
celebrated tissues of Dabikt material, coarse and fine, besides 
gauzes and striped fabrics and velvet and damask and many other 
sorts of apparel; and at Damietta strong tissues of Dabiki, fine 
linen, and gauze were woven iJBihl. Geog. Arab., part vii. pp. 
330-332 and 337). These crafts were certainly not brought into 
the country by the Arabs, but survived from Roman times. On 
embroidered and woven stuffs actually found in Egypt see Strzy- 
gowski, Orient oder Rom, pp. 113 seq. ; also 90 seq. 



112 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

andria perhaps the most important was ship-building. 
Alexandria was the busiest port and the largest 
market in the world. Besides the enormous trade 
in corn, linen, paper, glass and other local products, 
and the traffic in gold and ivory from Nubia and 
Ethiopia, all the spices, silks, silver, precious stones, 
and other wares from the Indian and the Chinese 
seas came from the Red Sea by canal from Kulzum 
or Suez to Memphis and thence down the Nile to 
Alexandria, whence they were distributed over the 
Mediterranean. So vast a commerce required a 
very large amount of shipping: and though Egypt 
was always in historic times destitute of timber for 
ship-building, it was found more profitable to import 
balks from Syria and elsewhere, and to build the 
vessels where the trade which demanded them was 
centred. Egypt too was famous for a special kind 
of hemp, admirably adapted for cordage and ships' 
tackling ^. 

We have already seen that one of the corn-ships 
owned by the Church at Alexandria carried a 
burthen of 20,000 bushels, nor is this recorded as 
in any way an exceptional cargo. The probability 
is that these merchant vessels were much larger 
than we are wont to imagine. The same is true of 
the war vessels. Not many years after this time, 
when Egypt was in possession of the Saracens, and 
when any purely Byzantine shipwrights must have 
been withdrawn from the docks at Alexandria, the 
Saracen leader in Syria, Mu awiah, ordered a number 
of war-ships to be built in Alexandria and other 

* Ibn al Fakih (tenth century) says, *One of the wonders of 
Egypt is a kind of hemp called duks, of which ships' tackling is 
made, and such ropes are called al ki'rkis' [BibU Geog. Arab. 
part V. p. 66). 



Art and Literature 113 

seaports within his dominion. According to Sebeos 
the ships were of two classes, which one might 
almost call battleships and cruisers. The battle- 
ships each carried a thousand men, while the lighter 
vessels carried a complement of one hundred ^, and 
were specially designed for fast sailing and rapid 
manoeuvring round the big ships. Very interesting 
details are given of the armament of the men-of-war. 
Not only were they equipped with formidable bat- 
teries — ' catapults and stone-throwing engines ' — but 
some of them had lofty towers built upon the deck, 
so that, when the vessels came alongside fortified 
walls, the assailants should be on a level with the 
defenders, and, by leaping or bridging the short 
space between tower and wall, should effect a lodge- 
ment on the ramparts. 

But even more remarkable Is the express testi- 
mony of Sebeos that these great ships were armed 
with ' fire-spouting engines,' i. e. machines for hurling 
the deadly flames known as Greek fire. This power- 
ful compound of Inflammable materials not merely 
burned with unquenchable fierceness, but seems 
also to have possessed an explosive or rending 
force, which wrought great destruction and caused 
great terror. But the special Interest of this passage 
in Sebeos lies in this — that It makes ships built in 

^ These numbers are quite clear, as Mr. Conybeare tells me, in 
the MS. of Sebeos, and I see no reason to doubt them, although 
the text would give the number of large ships as 300, each carrying 
1,000 men, and 5,000 cruisers each carrying 100, or a total of 
800,000 men sent over sea to attack Byzantium, besides those 
that Mu'awiah took overland to Chalcedon. This is of course an 
impossible total ; but even if the tale of ships should be reduced, 
the * arms and engines ' which Sebeos mentions, as well as tents, 
provisions, and perhaps horses, must have occupied a very large 
proportion of the space in the vessels. 



114 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Egypt after the Arab conquest to Arab orders 
armed with artillery for discharging the blazing 
chemicals, the composition of which is generally 
held to have been, in the seventh century at least, 
a Byzantine secret. The invention of Greek fire 
is usually ascribed to Callinicus, an engineer of 
Heliopolis, and the Heliopolis is too readily assumed 
to be the Syrian town of that name instead of the 
older and more famous city of Egypt. Gibbon 
clearly leans to Cedrenus view, that Callinicus was 
an Egyptian, although he mistakenly speaks of 
Heliopolis as then in ruins ^ It is scarcely con- 
ceivable that little more than twenty years after the 
Arab conquest of Egypt ships built at Alexandria 
should have been armed with these engines for 
shooting Greek fire, unless both the discovery of 
the composition and the construction of the engines 
had originated in the country. 

Be that as it may, it is unquestionable that the 
art of ship-building greatly flourished at Alexandria 
during the first half of the seventh century in 
Egypt, and that it was not stricken with decline 
when the Byzantine overlordship of Egypt ended : 
a fact which proves that in this as in all the great 
branches of industry in the Nile valley the Copts 
were independent of Roman direction, if indeed 
they were not the master craftsmen. 

This rapid review of the arts and of the literature 
of Alexandria about the time of the Persian con- 
quest has of necessity in some points touched both 

^ Decline and Fall, ch. 52, note 2. 'Cedrenus brings this 
artist from the ruins of HeliopoHs in Egypt, and chemistry was 
indeed the peculiar science of the Egyptians/ Lebeau too has 
an exhaustive note on the subject of Greek fire (vol. xi. p. 419). 
See also Prof. Bury's Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. pp. 311, 319. 



Art and Literature 115 

on previous and on subsequent history. But it is 
designed both to serve as a rough sketch of the 
material civilization of the time, and to show that 
its continuity was not broken, at least by the 
Persians. The armies of Chosroes did little serious 
mischief either to the architectural or to the literary 
treasures of the capital. The great libraries, if they 
existed, did not find their destroyers in the Persian 
conquerors. The magnificent lighthouse called the 
Pharos — one of the world's seven wonders — still 
towered between the city and the sea, capped with 
clouds of smoke by day and with flaming fire by 
night : neither the ancient temples, nor the spacious 
colonnades, nor the countless palaces which made 
Alexandria famous, were overthrown. Even the 
churches within the walls were practically uninjured, 
and worshippers still thronged the great Cathedral 
of Caesarion and the church of St. Mark, where 
beneath the high altar still reposed the remains of 
the Apostle of Egypt ^ 

^ The safety of St. Mark's is known from the testimony of 
pilgrims at a later date. It survived the second Arab capture 
of Alexandria, in which the Caesarion seems to have perished. 



1.2 



CHAPTER IX 

CRUSADE AGAINST PERSIA. 

Heraclius sues for peace. His departure for Carthage arrested. 
War with Persia resolved upon. Futile embassy to Chosroes. 
Expedition to Cilicia. Command of the sea. Scene in St. Sophia. 
The campaign ends in the destruction of Persian power. Recovery 
of the Cross. Triumph of Heraclius. 

The fortunes of Heraclius had now fallen so low- 
that his Empire was almost bounded by the walls 
of his capital. On the westward or landward side of 
Constantinople hordes of Tartars or Huns and other 
barbarian tribes had roamed for years unchecked, 
and were prowling round the very gates of the city. 
On the east the Persian armies, which had con- 
quered Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, had advanced 
through Asia Minor sweeping all before them, 
and were in occupation of Chalcedon on the Asian 
shore of the Bosporus fronting Constantinople^. 
The hopes which had shone on the accession of 
Heraclius were extinguished or clouded, as the 
masterful vigour which had won him the throne 
gave way, or rather seemed to give way, to apathy 
or despair. The first act of his reign was to send 
a humble message to Chosroes asking for peace, 
which was disdainfully refused ^. 

When the tidings came that Egypt was lost to , 

^ The position of Chalcedon is accurately described by Theo- 1 
phylact, vii. 15, and again viii. 14 (Teubner Classics, ed. de 
Boor). 

^ Sebeos records that Chosroes answered, ' The Empire is mine. 
He has usurped it, and now sends us our own treasures as presents: 
but I will not rest till I have brought him into my power.' The 
ambassadors were put to death, and no reply was sent to Heraclius. 



Crusade against Persia 117 

the Empire and the tribute of money and corn from 
that rich province cut off, with his exchequer and 
granaries empty and with ferocious enemies be- 
sieging or threatening his walls, which were guarded 
by an undisciplined and nerveless garrison, the 
Emperor seemed to resign all hope of deliverance. 
His meditated flight gives colour to the view that 
he felt unequal to the burden of the Empire ; 
that all the heroic element in his character was 
overborne by the press of disasters; and that 
his moral strength was broken. It was certainly 
believed that he had resolved to fling off his crown 
and to return home to Africa : and his subjects 
might well recall the taunt of Phocas, 'Are you the 
man to govern the Empire better ? ' But there is 
some reason to think that Heraclius wished rather 
to shift the centre of government to Carthage, and 
there to prepare at leisure for the reconquest of his 
Asiatic dominions. 

Whatever the truth may be, a vessel laden with 
treasures he wished to save had already sailed, 
bound for Carthage, and had reached the coast 
of Pentapolis, where it suffered shipwreck, when 
Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, having 
discovered the design of Heraclius, stood angrily 
between him and his purpose. By what power of 
speech or magnetism of will he prevailed, can only 
be conjectured : it is certain that he breathed a new 
purpose into the Emperor, and led him to take a 
solemn oath at the high altar in the Cathedral that 
he would be true to his trust, and that he would 
fight for the deliverance of his Empire from the 
enemies of the Cross ^. 

^ Lebeau's Histoire du Bas Empire^ ed. de Saint-Martin, vol. xi. 
pp. 19-21, 



ii8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Whether It was the eloquence of Sergius in 
preaching what was really the first great crusade, or 
the stirring power of the scene beneath the great 
dome of St. Sophia, or some new gleam of hope 
from the altered disposition of his foes, or all com- 
bined with a reaction from deep discouragement 
natural in a man whose strong power of brain was 
governed by a highly nervous temperament, it is 
beyond question that from this moment a most 
remarkable change was wrought in the Emperor. 
To the outer world at least he seemed to cast off 
like a slough all his weakness and indolence, resum- 
ing the character of a strong leader, and to show 
a kingship worthy of men's allegiance. His whole 
mind was now given to collecting and organizing his 
resources for a war with Persia. 

Nevertheless his counsels were guided by caution^ 
and while he was preparing to fight, he resolved 
to ask terms of peace from the Persian general^ 

^ Both the Chronicon Paschale and Theophanes give %ay]v as 
the name, while Nicephorus gives ^SatVos, i.e. Shahtn, to whom 
also is attributed the conquest of Egypt : see ante, p. 70 n. The 
Chronicon Paschale very clearly makes Saen the original captor of 
Chalcedon, and with equal clearness makes Khorheam (whom it 
calls SaXjSapas, i.e. Shah-Waraz) commander of the Persian army 
of occupation at Chalcedon ten years later, dating his arrival 
there 626. Both statements can hardly be correct, but the 
confusion between Shahtn and Shah-Waraz is more perplexing 
than surprising. Gibbon calls this latter general ' Sarbaraza,' and 
two pages lower speaks of a general called ' Sarbar.' The twa 
names refer to the one person, although Gibbon does not seem 
conscious of the fact. Gibbon places Sa6n in command at 
Chalcedon now, makes him accompany Heraclius' envoys, and 
says that he was flayed alive for his pains by Chosroes : but 
Theophanes makes Saen die of melancholy and disease some years 
later after a defeat, Chosroes insulting his dead body. Sebeos 
describes Shahin as raiding Cappadocia in 610, and subsequently 



Crusade against Persia 119 

at Chalcedon, whom he visited in person. The 
Emperor was advised to send ambassadors to 
Chosroes, who was represented as certain to grant 
a favourable reply. Accordingly three distinguished 
envoys were dispatched with a letter, which is still 
extant, and with costly presents. The ambassa- 
dors duly delivered their message to the Great 
King, who did not refuse the precious gifts they 
offered : but his reply was stern and uncompromising. 
' Tell your master/ he said, * that the Roman Empire 
belongs to me. Heraclius is a rebel and a slave : and 
I will grant no peace till he abandons the worship 
of the Crucified for the worship of the sun ^! 

The studied insolence of this answer gave the 
shock needed to rouse the deadened spirit of the 
Romans. It pointed afresh the religious aspect of 
the war, and fired at once the indignation and the 
enthusiasm of the people. The Emperor now found 
in them the material required for his new plans. 
While his ambassadors were on their way to the 

co-operating with Khorheam. But Sebeos, who gives the speech 
made by Heraclius on this occasion at Chalcedon, alleges that 
Khorheam had now come to Chalcedon and was in command 
there. This is doubtless the truth, Shahin being in Egypt. 

^ Part of this answer is given by Theophanes, part by Persian 
writers: ^^^ Journal Asiatique, 6© serie, 1866, vol. vii. p. 201. 
Eutychius relates that Constantinople being hard pressed by 
Chosroes wished to surrender, but that Heraclius secured his 
retirement by agreeing to pay 1,000 talents of gold and of silver, 1,000 
virgins, 1,000 horses, and 1,000 robes of silk. Gibbon adopts this 
story, but it does not seem worthy of credit. It is inconsistent with 
the ten years' occupation of Chalcedon, which is well attested, nor 
does Gibbon explain the inconsistency. The contemporary 
Chronicon Paschale knows nothing of any such arrangement : and 
the story is probably nothing but a late version of the embassy 
referred to in the text. Sebeos gives a somewhat different version 
of Chosroes' letter to the Emperor. 



I20 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Persian court, Heraclius is said to have made peace 
for a while with his barbarian enemies ^ and so 
cleared the landward side of the capital. Later we 
are told that he made an alliance with a Turkish tribe • 
to the north of Persia, and promised his daughter 
Eudocia in marriage to their chief in part payment 
for a force of 40,000 cavalry — a compact voided by 
the death of the chieftain. Yet the evidence of 
peace in the west is very difficult to establish ^ ; 
because in 622 or 623 the Avars w^ere still ravaging 
the country-side, and by an act of infamous treachery 
nearly succeeded in assassinating Heraclius and 
capturing Constantinople; and again in 626 an 
army of 30,000 Avars besieged the city acting in 
alliance with the Persians at Chalcedon, who were 
then commanded, as it seems, by the newly arrived 
Shah-Waraz. So that the peace with the Avars was 
neither real nor lasting. Heraclius probably esti- 
mated the treaty at its true value, and trusted 
rather to the strength of his walls and his galleys 
to secure Constantinople in his absence. But such 
was the warlike ardour of his people, that he soon 
enrolled and equipped a large army, which with 
allies ultimately numbered 120,000 men. His plan 
was first to find a training-ground where he could 
drill his levies into discipline and practise them in 
military movements and the use of arms, while vast 
supplies were being gathered and stored : and then, 

* Cedrenus ascribes this peace to the eleventh year of Heraclius, 
i. e. 621 or 622. 

^ Theophanes' account of the matter is probably correct, but his 
dates are very hard to follow or to reconcile with other authorities, 
even allowing for the fixed error in his system of chronology. If 
the attack on Heraclius took place in 623, it would be in the winter 
when he returned for some weeks to Constantinople from the 
theatre of war. 



Crusade against Persia 121: 

when his forces were ready for the field, to strike 
at the heart of Persia. He resolved therefore to 
transport his army to the Bay of Issus at the north- 
east corner of the Mediterranean and to make 
Cilicia his base — a move of singular boldness which 
was rendered possible by the fact that his command 
of the sea was undisputed and his resources in 
shipping enormous. 

This reveals at once the cardinal blunder of the 
Persians. Had they only followed up their early 
victories on land by learning to fight and conquer 
by sea, nothing could have saved the Empire \ 
Fortunately for the history of Christian civilization 
the Persians were not a seafaring people, and at this 
juncture they totally failed to realize the need of 
commanding the sea in order to complete and to 
secure their conquests. Sebeos indeed relates that 
Chosroes, in sending his insolent letter to Heraclius, 
sent orders to his own troops to cross over to 
Byzantium, whereupon they equipped a large squad- 
ron and made every preparation for battle by sea. 
But when the Persian flotilla advanced, the Roman 
galleys fell upon it with such fury that the Persians 
were shamefully defeated with a loss of 4,000 men ^ 
and all their ships, and were so dismayed that ' they 
never again ventured upon this kind of undertaking.* 
Consequently for not less than ten years they 
remained in idle occupation of their naval base at 
Chalcedon, and of the magnificent harbour of Alex- 
andria, to say nothing of Syrian seaports and the 

* Chosroes had actually endeavoured, after the Persian occupa- 
tion of Chalcis, to build a fleet, but the material collected for the 
purpose was destroyed by fire and the attempt abandoned. 

2 So Thomas Ardzrouni, who mentions ' 4,000 mailed warriors ' 
as slain. See Brosset's Collection dtHistoriens Armemens, t. i. p. 82. 



122 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

more western ports in Libya and Pentapolis. At 
all these places they might have gathered and 
trained their fleets to sweep the Mediterranean : 
even at Alexandria alone such a navy might have 
been built and manned as would have given battle 
to the Roman armaments with every chance of 
victory. But the land-fighting Persians were blind 
to the yalue of sea-power : they failed to read the 
lesson which the Roman republic of old had been 
slow indeed to learn, but learned effectively in its 
wars with Carthage — the lesson which the Arabs 
were destined to grasp with rapid intelligence before 
the close of this seventh century. Consequently the 
Persian camps were chained to the coast : and so 
limited was their power of offence, that Heraclius 
before very long discovered his ability to disregard 
their presence. Even ten years after the capture of 
Chalcedon the Byzantine galleys rode the sea trium- 
phant in the narrow strait between the Persian and 
the Hunnish armies \ 

Before starting on his expedition round Asia 
Minor, and in order to defray its cost, Heraclius 
borrowed all the immense treasures of gold and 
silver vessels which the churches could lend, to coin 
into money. It was a wasteful and deplorable 
method of replenishing the empty state exchequer, 
but perhaps no other was available. When all was 
ready, he made over the government to his son, 
with the Patriarch Sergius and the patrician Bonus 
as guardians. Then shod in black he entered the 
great Cathedral, and falling prostrate prayed for the 
divine blessing upon his undertaking 2. George 

^ Chronicon Paschale^ Migne, Patr. Gr. t. 92, col. 10 14. 
^ Cedrenus tells this story, and gives the words of Heraclius' 
prayer. 



Crusade against Persia 123 

of Pisidia, deacon and sacristan of the Cathedral, 
witnessed the Emperors devotions and remarked, 
* May you dye red in the blood of your enemies 
the sandals now black on your feet ' — a pious wish 
which may more easily be pardoned in the poet 
laureate ^ than in the chaplain of the expedition : 
for George seems to have accompanied it in both 
characters. It was on Easter Monday, 622 2, that 
Heraclius weighed anchor from the capital, and 
sailed southward. The armada, after weathering 
a storm in which Heraclius displayed at once the 
coolness of a commander and the hardihood of 
a common sailor, ploughed on its way and made a 

^ The tedious poems on the wars with Persia and with the Avars 
by George of Pisidia may be found in Migne's Patr. Gr. t. 92. 
A few Hues from the Heracliad will bear translation, as showing the 
revival of spirit which Heraclius wrought : — 

'When the army was filled with dread of the Persian, 
When their manner of battle was flight from danger 
And this had become second nature by use : 
Who turned their hearts to war and clad them in the armour of 

his eloquence ? 
Who changed their craven souls, 
And from their cowardice brought out courage ? 
Even thou, by thy wisdom and strength, 
Which roused them to life, when they were like dull stones 
Cumbering the earth with a profitless burden.' 
^ The year is fixed accurately by Theophanes, who expressly 
identifies it with the year in which Mohammed appeared, i. e. the 
year of the Hijrah, or 622. The Chronicon Paschalegw^'&ih.^ same 
date : which may therefore be taken as a fixed point in the misty 
chronology of this period. George of Pisidia, who sailed with 
Heraclius, and after him Theophanes and Cedrenus, make the 
Emperor leave the capital on Easter Monday. Gibbon apparently 
follows them, but changes the day to Easter Tuesday, presumably 
from misunderstanding the feria secunda of the Latin version. 
Feria prima is of course Sunday. Theophanes confuses the first 
and the second expedition. 



124 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

prosperous voyage to its destination. The force 
landed and camped at Issus, and seized the pass 
of Pylae on the frontier between Cilicia and 
Syria ^. 

It is no part of the writer s purpose to follow in 
detail the six years' war which Heraclius now waged 
against the Persian Empire. From the first his 
arms were victorious. Out of the very unpromising 
material of which his army was composed he forged 
a weapon of the finest temper, which he wielded 
with consummate skill to break down the power of 
his enemies. His athletic strength and prowess in 
single combat, his enthusiasm, his burning faith 
in his mission as champion of the Cross, his readi- 
ness to share all hardships with his men, his personal 
ascendency and power of discipline, the rapidity and 
brilliancy of his tactics, and his coolness in meeting 
new combinations — all these qualities which he now 
revealed made him an ideal leader of men and 
secured him an unparalleled succession of triumphs. 

The expedition to Cilicia drove a wedge into the 
very centre of the vast territory between the Nile 
and the Bosporus now controlled by the Persians. 
In the following year a second expedition to Trebi- 
zond drove in another wedge to meet it from the 
northern side of Asia Minor. The pressure thus 
exerted was enormous ; and, as blow followed blow, 
the Persians were forced to recall their armies from 

^ George of Pisidia deals in tantalizing generalities : but Sebeos 
confirms and supplements his account. According to Sebeos there 
was a drawn battle close to Antioch city, with great slaughter on both 
sides. But the Romans retreated to Pylae, where they defeated the 
Persians, who however recovered and took Tarsus and all Cilicia. 
Does this mean that the expedition failed ? George of Pisidia gives 
no hint of such a result, though he records the Emperor's return to 
Byzantium. 



Crusade against Persia 125 

Alexandria and from Chalcedon. It Is not clear in 
what year either event happened; but historians 
agree in making the occupation of both towns begin 
and end nearly simultaneously, and they differ little 
regarding the period of occupation, which in each 
case is estimated at ten and twelve years by different 
authorities. We shall not be far wrong in dating 
the withdrawal of the Persians from the Bosporus 
and the Nile early in the year 627 a. d.^ 

The crowning achievement of the war — the capture 
by Heraclius of Dastagerd, some eighty miles to 
the north of Madain or Ctesiphon — took place in 
February, 628. On the 24th of that month Chosroes 
fled ignomlniously, but was caught and thrown into 
prison, where after suffering indignity and torture 
at the hands of his successor Siroes, he was put to 
death a few days later. Chosroes palace was burnt 
to the ground, and all its magnificent and costly 
treasures 2 that could not be removed perished in 

^ The Chronicon Paschale assigns to June 29, 626, the arrival 
of the Avars and the Khakan before Byzantium, and makes it some 
days after the arrival of the Shah-Waraz to take over the command 
at Chalcedon. The siege failed owing to the fact that the Roman 
galleys retained their command of the sea and so prevented the 
designed co-operation between the Avars and the Persians. There- 
upon the Khakan sullenly retired with his baffled and starving 
troops : and two years later the war was over. 

^ Theophanes deplores the destruction of *most artistic and 
admirable buildings and astonishing palaces,' and gives an account 
of the aviaries and zoological gardens. He says too that vast 
quantities of aloes and spices, sugar, ginger, linen, silk, carpets and 
precious metals perished in the flames. Oriental authors have 
fabulous tales of the wealth and wonders of Chosroes' palace. Thus 
the Tarikh Regum Persiae (p. 160) tells of an automaton with a 
sort of orrery which marked rain, thunder, «fec. : the Tarikh Jahdn 
Ard (translated by Sir W. Ouseley, p. 61) says that Chosroes had 
in his palace 15,000 female musicians, 8,000 household officers, 



126 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the flames. Multitudes of captives from Syria and 
from Egypt were released/the Patriarch Zacharias of 
Jerusalem among them ; the reliquary enclosing the 
Holy Rood was brought uninjured and delivered 
into the hands of Heraclius ^ ; and the war was 

20,500 horses, 960 elephants : he also had a cup in which water 
never failed : an open ivory hand which he put in water when a 
child was born, when it closed and revealed the child's horoscope : 
a piece of gold soft as wax, and a kerchief which when soiled was 
thrown into the fire and so became clean again. See also Gibbon's 
Decline and Fall, vol. viii. p. 230 (Edin. 1848). 

^ It is not clear whether Heraclius recovered the Cross at once 
from Siroes. According to Brosset {Collection d'Hisloriens Armentens, 
t. i. p. 86) Heraclius summoned Khorheam, the Shah-Waraz, and 
promised him the kingdom of Persia as ransom for the Cross. 
Brosset adds in a note that Khorheam was then at Chalcedon : but 
in this I think he is mistaken. For (i) Khorheam left Chalcedon 
before the fall of Chosroes (see Drapeyron, p. 258), and (2) even 
were it otherwise, the promise of the kingdom to Khorheam could 
only have been given after the death of Siroes. According to 
Drapeyron Heraclius returned to his palace near Chalcedon, leaving 
Theodore to recover the Cross from Khorheam : and Theodore, 
having succeeded in the quest, brought the Cross to the palace, 
whence Heraclius bore it in triumph over the water to Constan- 
tinople. This was four months later, viz. September 14, 628 
(pp. 276-7), but the date, which is the date of the exaltation of 
the Cross at Jerusalem, may arise through confusion with that 
festival. Sebeos is somewhat at variance with this account, while 
agreeing that it was from Khorheam that Heraclius recovered the 
Cross, not from Siroes. Sebeos describes a personal meeting 
at which Heraclius promised Khorheam the sovereignty, on 
the death of Siroes in August, 628, asking in return for the 
Cross. Khorheam vowed assent, went to Ctesiphon, slew the 
child-king Ardashir and many of the nobles, found the Cross, 
and delivered it to special envoys sent by Heraclius with all 
haste. If this story be true, the Cross cannot have reached the 
Emperor much, if at all, before Christmas, 628. But it is not 
clear why Heraclius failed, if he did fail, to get the Cross from 
Siroes, nor why Khorheam should have been more able and more 
willing to find and surrender it. It should be noted that Sebeos 



Crusade against Persia 12'j 

ended by a formal treaty of peace between the 
Roman Empire and Persia. The great crusade 
was accomplished by one of the most romantic 
triumphs in history. 

It was on Whit Sunday, May 15, in the same 
year, that the Emperor's dispatches announcing the 
victorious termination of the war were read from the 
great ambon in the Cathedral of St. Sophia^ — an 

represents Khorheam as being at 'Alexandria' when he received 
the letter of Heraclius which led to their meeting. That this is 
Alexandria of Syria is clear because (i) Sebeos does not say as 
usual when he so means ' Alexandria of the Egyptians ' : (2) geo- 
graphically Khorheam must have been in proximity, because the 
story, which had left him in Cappadocia, speaks of him as still 
* in the west ' directly after the capture of Ctesiphon by Heraclius 
and as refusing to help Chosroes : and (3) while Tabari, as we have 
seen, denies that the Shah-Waraz went to Egypt, Mas*udi says : 
j\> jJi* ^liJl yh^ ^jA juUlajl ^ jjJl jl--9, * Shahr-bar went against 
him (Siroes) from Antioch of Syria' (ed. Barbier de Maynard, 
vol. ii. p. 233). 

^ It is the Chronicon Paschale which, by incidentally mentioning 
that May 15, on which day the ceremony took place, was also 
Whit Sunday, renders us the great service of fixing another point 
in the chronology. The fact does not seem to have been adequately 
noticed, but it is very important. Now the only year about this 
time in which May 15 fell on a Sunday. is 628, and the tables in 
the Tresor de Chronologie show that in the year 628 Easter Day was 
on March 27. And Easter Day being on March 27, it follows 
that Pentecost would fall on May 15, precisely in accordance with 
the explicit statement of the Chronicon. Just as, therefore, the 
beginning of Heraclius' crusade is fixed with certitude in 622 by 
its coincidence with the Hijrah of Mohammed, so its ending is 
fixed in 628 by the coincidence of the date and the festival given 
by the Chronicon ; and the interval is six years, as all the authorities 
demand. So much then may be regarded as settled. Drapeyron 
(p. 267) agrees in the date: yet on the preceding page he makes 
the letter, which was read in St. Sophia on May 15, written from 
Armenia after May 8 ! On the other hand, Theophanes seems to 
close the war in 626, and to place the Emperor's visit to Jerusalem 
in the same year. The preface to the letter of Zacharias from his 



128 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

incident which seems to have strongly impressed the 
imagination of contemporary writers, and which was 
doubtless accompanied by all the state and pomp of 
wonted use in that great building on a glorious 
occasion ^ 

But the Emperor was still detained for some time 
in the east by the work of pacification. When, how- 
captivity (Migne, Pair. Gr. t. 86, col. 3219 seq.) assigns the death 
of Chosroes to 627 and the restitution of Zacharias to the following 
spring, 628. But where was Zacharias in the interval ? He certainly 
did not accompany the Emperor to Constantinople. The Tarikk 
Jahdn Ard (see p. 125, n. 2) gives the tenth Jumada al Awwal in 
A.H. 7, as the date of Chosroes' death. This is very precise : but as 
the date corresponds to September 15, 628, it must be rejected, the 
evidence for February being very strong. But with the month the 
year also would be wrong according to the Arab calendar, since 
February 628 falls in a.h. 6. The Arabic historian Makin makes 
out that the deposition and death of Chosroes took place in a.h. 5. 
But the writer in the Journal Asiaiique (6® sdrie, vol. vii. 1866), 
following Sebeds and other Armenian authorities, gives the years 
of Chosroes' reign as extending from the summer of 590 to 628 a.d. 
These dates are in complete harmony with Tabari, whose authority 
on Persian history is very high. For he states that the Hijrah 
of Mohammed took place in the thirty-second year of Chosroes' 
reign (622) and that Chosroes' death took place in the thirty-eighth 
year, which would be 628. 

The agreement of these diverse writers with the Chronicon 
Paschale mvist be regarded as quite decisive in fixing February, 628, 
as the date for Chosroes' dethronement and death. Yet this date 
does not altogether square with the date I have given for the 
capture of Jerusalem by the Persians, viz. 615 : unless one shortens 
the period of captivity, which is loosely said to have lasted fourteen 
years, a total which can only be made up by wrongly counting part 
of 615 and part of 628 as full years. 

^ No one interested in this splendid monument of Byzantine 
architecture should fail to read Messrs. Lethaby and Swainson's 
S. Sophia^ Constantinople, The work is rich in historical as well as 
architectural details : in particular there is a good deal about the 
ambon. 



Crusade against Persia 129 

ever, the remaining Persian garrisons in Syria and 
Asia Minor had been withdrawn under safe-conduct, 
and the Patriarch Zacharlas had been restored to 
his seat in Jerusalem, then Heraclius turned home- 
ward after six years of strife and entered Constanti- 
nople in triumph, bearing with him the Holy Rood 
which he had rescued from the heathen. 



K 



CHAPTER X 

THE EXALTATION OF THE CROSS 

Heraclius' pilgrimage to Jerusalem with the Cross. The Jews 
at Tiberias. The Cross exalted at the church of the Resurrection. 
Climax of the Emperor's career. He sanctions a massacre of the 
Jews. The Fast of Heraclius. Death of the Patriarch Zacharias, 
and of his successor Modestus. The Emperor's scheme of religious 
union. Cyrus, Bishop of Phasis, made Patriarch of Alexandria. 

In the following year, 629, the Emperor set forth 
in the early spring on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for 
the purpose of restoring to its place the Cross, which 
meanwhile had rested in St. Sophia. Two incidents 
are recorded of the journey. 

According to some writers it was about this time 
that at Emesa ^ (or Edessa) envoys from Mohammed 
arrived, bearing letters which invited Heraclius to 
adopt the religion of Islam. This episode, however, 
seems to belong to an earlier date, before the death 
of the Great King. The other event is as follows. 
When the Emperor reached Tiberias, the Jews sent 
a deputation with costly gifts to ask for a pledge of 
security. They remembered their own deeds against 
the Christians, and feared the Emperor's vengeance. 
But he generously gave them the promise of protec- 
tion, and the Jews were prudent enough to obtain 
his bond in writing. 

The journey was resumed, and at length the Holy 

^ Both places are named : but it is hardly likely that Heraclius 
went so far out of his way as to reach Edessa, though he stayed 
there a good deal later. The two places are constantly confused 
in the records of this time. But I think the whole story is out of 
place here, the letters having reached Heraclius before the end 
of 627. See below, p. 139 n. and p. 140, n. 2. 



Exaltation of the Cross 131 

City was seen In the distance. It is easy to picture the 
glittering cavalcade — the flashing steeP and fluttering 
pennons of the horsemen, the bowmen and spearmen 
with shield and quiver and lance, and in the midst 
the Emperor and his stafl'^^ one blaze of gold and 
colour. As Heraclius drew near, he was met by 
a great procession of clergy and monks under Mo- 
destus, bearing gospels and tapers and censers — the 
customary ritual — and followed by a great multitude 
of the inhabitants. So accompanied he passed to 
the Golden Gate ^ on the eastern side of the city, 
where the Patriarch Zacharias was waiting. But 
after an act of homage the Patriarch rebuked his 
ruler for the splendour of his garb, and bade him lay 

^ The ordinary equipment of the Roman cavalry soldier at this 
time was a steel cap, a coat of mail, gauntlets, and steel shoes : see 
Mr. Oman's Art of War in the Middle Ages, pp. 184 seq. The 
writer remarks that the armour prescribed in Maurice's Strategicon, 
c. 578, is also prescribed with scarcely any change by Leo the 
Wise, in his Tactica, c. 900 a.d. Flags were also carried by 
military ordinance. They are often mentioned by Greek writers, 
and banners of silk were commonly carried by the Muslim as well 
as the Roman forces. 

^ Sebeos specially records that the Emperor had all his ' imperial 
attendants ' with him on this journey. Some idea of the state in 
which he moved may be formed from Prof. Bury's description of 
what was customary even in the fifth century. ' A rich purple 
dress enveloped the whole body — wrought dragons shone on his 
silken robes . . . The caparisons of his horse were of gold, and as 
he rode, seated on a saddle white as snow, he was accompanied by 
the imperial guards, who carried spears with golden tips and shields 
with golden centres enriched by golden eyes' (.? bosses). Later 
2^ Oman Empire, vol. i. p. 196. 

^ In the twelfth century this Golden Gate was walled up and 
only used on Palm Sunday and on the feast of the Exaltation of 
the Cross — the latter because through that gate Heraclius passed 
on this occasion bringing back the Holy Rood from the Persian 
captivity. See Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, vol. vi, City of 
Jerusalem, p. 14. 

K 2 



132 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

aside his purple and gold, that he might approach the 
holy places with fitting humility : and the victorious 
Emperor marched on in the guise of a penitent 
pilgrim. On every side he saw signs of the ruin 
wrought fourteen years before by the Persians ; but 
he thanked Modestus for the great work of restora- 
tion which he had done, especially at the churches of 
the Resurrection, of the Skull, and of Constantine. 
Then followed the grand ceremonial known as the 
Exaltation of the Cross, the memory of which is still 
celebrated by Eastern and Western Churches alike on 
September 14. 

Legend has it that the Holy Rood, which was 
enshrined in a reliquary studded with jewels, had 
never been profaned by heathen eyes during the 
period of its captivity with the Persians : that even 
Chosroes had never dared to turn the key or to open 
the sacred treasure. It is extremely probable that 
the Rood was saved from destruction, partly owing 
to the superstitious reverence with which the heathen 
King regarded it, but partly also owing to the intrinsic 
value of the gold and precious stones enclosing it, 
Chosroes being a great collector of works of art. 
But however that may be, the relic was restored to 
the Cathedral church of the Resurrection, and there 
placed on the altar with solemn rites of great magni- 
ficence. 

It is not fanciful to see in this triumphant restora- 
tion of the Cross the dramatic climax of the Empe- 
ror s career. He was now at the zenith of his power 
and his fame, and may well have felt that his mission 
was accomplished. During ten years of failure and 
shame he had sunk under that strange besetting 
weakness of will which had bowed his Empire to the 
dust, which had suffered province after province to 



Exaltation of the Cross 133 

crumble away at the touch of barbarian armies, till 
nothing was left but the walls of his capital and the 
narrow strip of sea that sundered the beleaguering 
hosts of his enemies. Then rising like a dreamer 
from sleep he had astonished the world by an exhibi- 
tion of iron purpose and strength, of glowing enthu- 
siasm, of consummate strategy, of swiftness in decision 
and commanding power over men — qualities which 
marked him as by far the greatest captain of his age. 
The armies created and led by his genius had 
conquered the conquering Persians and freed his 
empire of their yoke from the Bosporus to the 
Araxes, from the Araxes to the Jordan, and from the 
Jordan to the Nile. Above all he had saved Christ- 
endom from the imminent danger of being swamped 
by a heathen religion ; he had rescued from a pagan 
king the most precious symbol of the Christian 
truth ; and now the restitution of the Cross to its 
shrine in the Holy City sealed in him the union of 
imperial conqueror and victorious defender of the 
faith. He had delivered the Roman Empire and 
delivered Christendom from the very edge of de- 
struction. 

But from this moment both his fortune and his 
character wavered and began to decline. His first 
political act was one of fierce reprisal against the 
Jews. People and priests in Jerusalem vied with 
each other in denouncing that race to the Emperor, 
and in charging them with more guilt than the 
Persians for the slaughter of the Christians and the 
demolition and burning of the churches. The charge 
was probably true, or near the truth ; it was not for 
nothing that the Jews had taken the Emperors bond 
of indemnity, and it is clear that they felt at this 
time a far more bitter hostility against the Christians 



134 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

than against their heathen neighbours. Heraclius, 
however, was loth to depart from his plighted word. 
He was reminded that he had given the pledge in 
ignorance of the facts ; that he was not bound by 
a promise cozened out of him by fraud ; that, had he 
known how the Jews smote the Christians with fire 
and sword, he must have dealt very sternly with 
them ; and so forth. The clamour or the casuistry, 
or both, prevailed. An edict was issued by which 
the Jews were driven out of Jerusalem and forbidden 
to come again within three miles of its walls. But 
banishment was the lightest punishment they suffered ; 
for Heraclius seems to have sanctioned the full 
measure of vengeance which the Christians demanded, 
and something like a general massacre followed ^ 
But in order to soothe the Emperor's conscience and 
their own, the Patriarch and bishops sent letters to 
every city ordering the institution of a week's fast 
for ever. That institution still remains, and to this 
day the first week of Lent with the Copts is called 
' The Fast of Heraclius.' It may be taken that the 
Copts joined in the massacre, having their own scores 
to settle with the Jews from the time of the Persian 
capture of Alexandria. 

The Emperor seems to have spent the winter in 
Jerusalem ; indeed from the date at which the fast 
is kept, it may be argued that the massacre of the 
Jews took place early in the following year, 630. It 
was during this winter that the Patriarch Zacharias 
died ^ and Modestus, by the voice of King 

^ Makrizt says that the Jews were * massacred till none were left 
in the kingdoms of Rfim, Egypt, and Syria, save those who had 
fled and hidden themselves.' This would make the massacre 
extend all over the Empire (Malan's tr., p. 70). The story is found 
also in Eutychius. 

^ In the Acta Mariyris Anastasii (ed. Usener, p. 12) it is stated 



Exaltation of the Cross 135 

and people alike, was placed on the patriarchal 
throne. 

It is not clear which of the two pontiffs was 
responsible for the massacre which sullied the fame 
of Heraclius ; doubtless both men consented to it ; 
but, when the Emperor turned northward again, he 
took Modestus with him to aid in the resettlement 
of Church matters consequent upon the recovery of 
Syria, and in the transfer to the orthodox party of 
those churches which Chosroes had made over to 
Monophysites or Nestorians ^ The Patriarch was 
required too to aid in formulating that plan of reli- 

that Heraclius reached Jerusalem in the third indie tion, the twentieth 
year of his reign (which is equivalent to the year beginning September, 
629), and that while he was there a bishop came from the Catholicus 
of Persia with letters for the Emperor and for Modestus, who had 
just been elected Patriarch. Here again is a statement and a date 
of great precision made by a contemporary writer — made in quite 
an incidental manner, but therefore all the more worthy of credit. 
Nor does the writer's belief in the miracles he records affect his 
trustworthiness on such a question of fact, where inaccuracy could 
have no motive. But if this date be accepted, it is clear that, 
inasmuch as Heraclius cannot have stayed very many months 
in Jerusalem, and Modestus was enthroned before he departed, 
Zacharias must have died not later than February or March, 630. 
The period of his primacy is given as twenty-two years : and this 
fairly agrees with the reputed date of his election in 609. Anastasius 
was martyred under Chosroes on January 22, 628, and his memoir 
was probably written a very short time after his death ; so that it 
may at least be taken as confirming the chronology which makes 
the entry of Heraclius into Jerusalem take place on Sept. 14, 629. 
^ Makin relates that in 625 Chosroes forced the people of Rfiha 
to embrace the Jacobite creed. One of the royal physicians named 
John was a Jacobite, and he persuaded Chosroes that so long as 
the people followed the orthodox party, so long would they favour 
the Romans ; whereupon the King gave them the choice of changing 
their creed or death. Cedrenus too says that at Edessa the churches 
which Chosroes had given to the Nestorians were restored by 
Heraclius to the Melkites or orthodox. 



136 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

gious union between the warring sects of the Empire 
which had long been among the Emperor s most 
cherished dreams, and which now seemed feasible to 
the victorious champion of Christendom. 

But Modestus died in the winter of 630-1, after 
a reign of only nine months ^ and Heraclius failing 
to find a bishop whose mind would mirror his own 
Church policy left the patriarchal throne of Jerusalem 
vacant. But he was not to be shaken from his purpose 
of reconciling the Jacobite and Melkite, the dissentient 
and orthodox parties in the Church. Sergius of Con- 
stantinople brought to the cause the zeal and power 
for which his name was famous. He was a Syrian by 
birth, and with him originated the formula of com- 
promise adopted by Heraclius, whereby it was settled 
to dismiss the question whether our Lord's nature 
was single or twofold, but to pronounce positively 
that there was but one will or operation. As long ago 
as 623, when the Emperor was in Armenia, he had 
come to terms with Paulus, so that the union of the 
State Church with the Armenian Church was accom- 
plished : and four years later in a visit to the Lazians 
he gained over Cyrus, the Nestorian bishop of 
Phasis, to the new doctrine. He now offered the 
primacy of Antioch to Athanasius on condition of his 
recognizing the Council of Chalcedon with the Mono- 
thelite interpretation. The three prelates seem to 
have met in council with the Emperor at Hierapolis, 
and the result of their debates was complete agree- 
ment upon the terms of the compromise, which it 

^ Eutychius gives the term as nine months, Nicephorus one 
year. After the interval the next Patriarch was Sophronius, who 
in 633 was present as simple monk at the Synod of Alexandria. 
His appointment probably took place in 634, though Eutychius 
makes the vacancy last for six years. 



Exaltation of the Cross 137 

was hoped would bring peace to the Church and heal 
her deep divisions. 

This agreement was probably reached in the early 
part of the year 631 \ and was immediately followed 
by the appointment of Cyrus to the primacy of Alex- 
andria, with instructions to draw the Coptic and 
Melkite Churches together in the happy union devised 
by the wisdom of the imperial council. So far 
the plan of the Emperor had prospered almost 
beyond expectation. The dispatches which reached 
him from Egypt were at first encouraging. Cyrus 
gave glowing reports of his progress, and it seemed 
as if Heraclius, after recovering and reuniting the 
Empire which the Persians had torn from his grasp 
and shattered, was about to fulfil the dream of 
his life. In battle he had won glory enough, by 
conquering the heathen and saving Christendom ; 
it would be a greater glory to bring peace and good- 
will to the Church, to vanquish its dissensions 2, and 
join its members in a single brotherhood owning 
a single faith. The symbol of the recovered Cross 
was before his eyes ; nor is it to be wondered at if 
above it he read that legend which had shone in the 
vision of his great predecessor, EN TOTTfll NIKA. 
By the Cross he had conquered in war, and the Cross 
was to be the inspiration of his statecraft in peace. 

^ Drapeyron (p. 303) is, as I have shown, clearly wrong in 
making the interview between Athanasius and the Emperor at 
Hierapolis take place in 629. Apart from the reasons already 
stated, Cedrenus says it was in the twentieth year of his reign that 
Heraclius at Hierapolis, after wavering between the Monophysite 
and the orthodox doctrine, finally forbade by an edict the recog- 
nition of either one or two natures. While the decision was no 
doubt taken in 631, the edict was not issued till a few years later. 
^ OTTcos 6 7r€«ras rjpejxeLV tov<s ^ap^dpov<s 
Treiar-Q crvv avTots ypefxeiv ras alpecreLS' 
quoted by Drapeyron, p. 301. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE RISE OF MOHAMMED 

Coincidences between Heraclius and Mohammed. The Prophet's 
letters to the rulers of the world, and the answers. Battle of Muta. 
Failure of Tabuk. Death of Mohammed and union of Arabia. 
The Cathedral at Sana*. Expedition against Syria. Causes of the 
success of Islam : Christian opinion. 

History is full of dramatic ironies : but in few- 
periods are they more abounding or more striking 
than in the reign of Heraclius. Almost at the 
moment when Heraclius began his career as 
Emperor, the great rival of his life and work, 
Mohammed, began his career as Prophet, in the 
year 6io^ Each of these two great men went 
through a period of discouragement and danger 
which lasted for twelve years, and each emerged 
from the fire of adversity with a spirit tempered to 
great purpose. It was in 622 that Heraclius started 
on his expedition to Cilicia, where he struck the 
first blow for the rescue of the Holy Rood and the 
recovery of his Empire from the Persians. In 622 
Mohammed by his flight from Mecca to Medina 
virtually opened his war for the rescue of the great 
shrine of the Ka*bah and for the conquest of Arabia : 
so that from that point dates the Mohammedan era 
for all time. 

Nor do the coincidences end here. From 622 

^ Mohammed was born in 570, and so was about forty years old 
at this time, as Arab writers agree. Heraclius was three or four 
years younger. I may add that this passage about coincidences 
was written before I had the opportunity of reading Drapeyron's 
most interesting work, L! Empereur H&aclius et T Empire Byzantin : 
q.v., pp. 318-9. 



Rise of Mohammed 139 

onwards both King and Prophet advanced in a career 
of victory almost unchequered for the space of six 
years. With eager eyes Mohammed watched the 
long eventful combat between Rome and Persia. He 
had deplored the earlier success of the Persian arms 
in 614 and 615, as the success of an idolatrous over 
a believing nation : but when the tide of war so 
strangely changed, and Heraclius in six years of 
furious struggle overthrew the might of Persia, then 
Mohammed, fired with new dreams of dominion, 
rejoiced to see victor and vanquished both drained 
of strength, and read in the issue the finger of God 
preparing the way for the power of Islam. So that 
the moment of Heraclius' greatest glory may well 
have been also the moment of Mohammed's greatest 
encouragement. 

Even before that the Prophet had felt himself 
strong enough to challenge the submission of the 
rulers of the world to his new religion. In the course 
of 627 ^, Mohammed caused letters to be written, and 

* There is as usual some doubt about the year. The Arab 
writers seem mostly (according to Mr. Evetts' note on Abfi Salih, 
p. 100, n. 3) to place the dispatch of the letters in a. h. 6, which 
began May 23, 627 a. d. Sale and Ockley give the date 629, but 
quite inconsistently make the Persian monarch at that time 
Chosroes Parwiz, whose death occurred in March, 628. It is 
known that Mohammed started for Mecca in spring — the time of 
the yearly festival— and that the letters were sent out after his 
return from the expedition, which ended in the armistice with 
the Kuraish. Accordingly the expedition must have taken place 
in 627, in order that Mohammed's letter should reach Chosroes 
before his dethronement in March, 628, as the story requires. For 
Tabari leaves no doubt that the Persian King who received the 
letter was Chosroes Parwiz, and that he received it several months 
before his death, and therefore well before the end of 627. 
Consequently we are driven to the conclusion that the letters were 
dispatched during that year. It follows that Heraclius must have 



140 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

he sealed them in Eastern fashion with a seal 
on which was written * Muhammad the Apostle of 
God/ All contained the same claim of allegiance 
to Islam and to the Arabian Prophet as Vicegerent 
of the Most High. These letters were sent to the 
princes of Yaman, of *Uman^ of Yamamah, and of 
Bahrain ; to Al Harith, prince of the Saracens on the 
borders of Syria ; to George, wrongly called the 
Mukaukas, governor of Alexandria and Viceroy of 
Egypt 2; to the Negus of Abyssinia ; to Chosroes, King 
of Persia ; and to Heraclius, Emperor of the Romans ^ 

received his letter in the summer of 627. The alternative, which 
would place Mohammed's expedition in the spring of 628, 
requires the explicit rejection of Tabari's evidence — a very strong 
measure. It raises other difficulties, because the letters cannot 
have gone out before May at the very earliest, and by that time 
Heraclius was in Armenia. This reasoning assumes the truth of 
Ibn Ishak's' statement that, the letters were all written together: 
on the other hand, it is just possible that the message to Persia was 
sent more than a year in advance of the message to Heraclius. 
This interval is unlikely, however, and the question is eminently one 
in which the Arab authorities may be trusted. 

^ Ibn Ishak (quoted by Dr. Koelle in Mohammed and Mo- 
hammedanism, pp. 194, 332-3) alleges that the bearer of the letter 
to TJmdn was 'Amr ibn al 'Asi, the future conqueror of Egypt. 
But he seems mistaken, since 'Amr was not converted to Isl^m at 
the time. 

^ Ibn Ishak, from whom these details come, makes it quite clear 
that a person whom he calls (though wrongly, of course) Al Mukaukas 
was virtual ruler of Egypt at this time, and this ruler must either 
have been directly appointed by Heraclius upon the evacuation of 
the country by the Persians or else have been continued by the 
Emperor in an office which he held under the Persian government. 
But the whole chronology of the letters is full of difficulty, and the 
probability is that they were sent out at different times, as oppor- 
tunity served. See a note in Hamaker's Wah'di, p. 24, n. 5. 

^ In dealing with Arab authorities at least one must recognize 
the use of the term « Romans,' in preference to ' Greeks ' or 
* Byzantines.' Indeed the importance of the first name is shown 



Rise of Mohammed 141 

Of the princes of Arabia two sent fair answers, 
viz. the rulers of Yamamah and Bahrain, and they 
professed their conversion. From Yaman and 
'Uman came rough replies, which Mohammed 
received with curses ; while a polite but worthless 
acquiescence came from the King of Abyssinia : and 
it may be remarked that, of all the dominions whose 
allegiance Mohammed demanded, Abyssinia to-day 
remains the one power which has never bowled the 
knee to Islam. The governor^ of Egypt promised 

by the fact that practically the only Arab name for people of the 
Empire was Ar R-dm. I am aware- of Prof. Bury's condemnation 
of those historians who use any other epithet than ' Roman ' for the 
Empire at this period (see the Preface to his Later Roman Empire), 
but I have not scrupled to speak of the ' Byzantine ' government 
or the ' Greek ' historians. Yet the people of the Empire called 
themselves ' Romans/ and to them ' Greek ' was a term of reproach 
synonymous with * heathen.* 

^ In the Appendix * On Al Mukaukis ' I have shown that the 
title is given to the governor at this time by an anachronism. I must 
of course entirely recant the views expressed in my note to Abu 
Salih, p. 81, n. 4. The office held by the receiver of Mohammed's 
letter must have been much higher than that of nomarch or 
pagarch ; in fact it was none other than that of * Praefectus 
Aegypti' or ' Augustalis,' or in other words Viceroy of Egypt. 
The very fact that Mohammed's letter was addressed to him is 
strong evidence of his position. The theory which makes the 
Roman official a mere pagarch reduces its advocates to some- 
thing like absurdity. Thus Mr. Milne in his note on the subject 
{Egypt under Roman Rule, pp. 224-5) says, 'George was pro- 
bably prefect of Augustamnica, as his province is not specified, 
and the names of the prefect of the province of Egypt and the 
prefects of Lower Egypt and Arcadia at this time are given else- 
where by John of Nikiou. His post on the eastern frontier of 
Egypt would make him the first person of high rank to whom the 
messengers of Mahomet came.' Now in the first place I think 
the three prefects mentioned are merely military prefects : and in 
the next it is utterly unreasonable to suppose that, while Mohammed 
knew all about the ruler of Persia, the ruler of the Roman 



142 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

to consider the message, and treated the envoy, 
Hdtib, with all honour ; he sent back with his reply- 
some valuable presents, which included two Coptic 
maidens, Mary and Shirin, the mule Duldul — absurdly 
said to be the first mule seen in Arabia — the ass 
Naf^r, and a bag of money ^. Mary adopted Islam, 
and became a great favourite with Mohammed, but 
she died in 636, and so never saw the enslavement 
of her country. 

The Persian King's answer was given in quite 
another temper. He tore the Prophet's letter to 
pieces in angry scorn, and wrote orders to Badhan 2, 
the Persian governor of the province of Hamyar, 

Empire, and the various chiefs and princes of Arabia, he knew 
nothing of the ruler of Egypt, but sent a letter haphazard to be 
delivered to and answered by the first local official whom his envoy 
might encounter. The Arab writers correctly assign to the receiver 
of the letter the highest office in the country. 

^ Abu Salih, p. loi. Some writers add butter and honey. 

"^ It may be useful briefly to recall the story of the Persian 
dominion in Arabia. Yaman, or Arabia Felix, though peopled 
mostly by a Jewish race, had been under Christian influence ever 
since the fourth century, and in the sixth the country was subject 
to Abyssinia. Wishing to throw off the yoke, the people had sent 
an envoy, Saif, to the Byzantine Emperor, who refused to aid 
a revolt which was directed against the Christian religion. Saif 
then went on to Persia in 574, and by a trick overcame the doubts 
of Aniishirwan, who finally sent an army of gaol-birds, in number 
3,600, under the general Horzad of Dailan. This force was 
transported in eight vessels — each therefore carrying 450 men 
besides stores and equipments. On landing they were joined by 
vast hosts of the natives, and soon captured the capital Sana'. 
Some years later, on a rebellion of the Abyssinian party, Chosroes 
sent a fresh army under the same leader, who crushed all resistance, 
and drove the Abyssinians out of Arabia. The Hamyar dynasty 
was thus extinguished, and Yaman with Hadramaut, Mahra, and 
'Uman became a Persian province. It is clearly recorded that 
Persian rule was mild and hardly felt, while both the Jewish and 



Rise of Mohammed 143 

to send him the head of the impudent impostor. 
* So shall God rend his kingdom,' said Mohammed 
when he heard how Chosroes had dealt with his 
letter — a forecast or a curse which had not long to 
tarry for fulfilment ^. 

And what of Heraclius ? While fresh from the 
ovations of the capital which had greeted the close 
of his conquests in Asia, as he was making his way 
in one long triumph through Syria and bearing the 
Holy Rood back to the Holy City, did any thought 
or remembrance cross his mind of the time when 
those wild horsemen dashed up to his encampment 
and their leader Dahiah ibn Khalifah delivered 
Mohammed's letter ? The Emperor must have 
heard what manner of answer the Persian King had 
sent : perhaps also he had heard of the murder at 
Muta : but his own reply had been courteous enough 
— so courteous that the Arab writers embroider 
upon it the ridiculous story that Heraclius yielded 

the Christian faith were freely tolerated. See Capt. R. L. Playfair's 
History of Arabia Felix (Bombay, 1859), pp. 72-7, and Wright's 
Christianity in Arabia, pp. 175-89. The Kingdom of Hirah 
was also subject to Persia. Its ruler, Nu'man abii Kabiis, who 
reigned from 589 to 611 a.d., and who had been an idolater given 
to human sacrifice, became a convert to Christianity, and after his 
baptism melted down a statue of Venus in solid gold which his 
people had worshipped. This story is given in lib. vi. c. 22 of 
Evagrius, whom Wright alleges to be in remarkable agreement 
with the Arab writers. 

* This remark, which is probably authentic, shows clearly that 
Chosroes and not Siroes received the letter. Siroes reigned only 
a few months — till August, 628. His successor, a feeble child, was 
put to death by the Shah-Waraz, whom Heraclius had nominated to 
the throne, seeing that a strong man was required. This was in 
the summer of 629. The Shah-Waraz, however, proved a tyrant 
of the worst description, and was assassinated early in 630. These 
dates seem well attested, but they are by no means undisputed. 



144 ^^^ Arab Conquest of Egypt 

obedience to Islam. Nothing was further from his 
thoughts ; nor was there the sHghtest reason why 
the master of so many war-hardened legions should 
take seriously the extravagant pretensions of an 
unknown Arabian chieftain. 

So Heraclius passed on his way unheeding, or at 
least untroubled. But while the great procession 
was winding from the Golden Gate up to the church 
on Calvary for the festival of the Uplifting of the 
recovered Cross, while all Jerusalem was crying and 
sobbing with an emotion which broke down even the 
singers quiring their triumphal hymns ^ at that same 
time a band of 3,000 horsemen sent by Mohammed 
was crossing the desert to Muta, to avenge the 
murder of his messenger, and to begin that war with 
the Roman Empire which ended only in 1453, when 
Constantinople fell before Islam, and the name of 
the Arabian dreamer was blazoned, where it still 
stands, on the walls of the great Cathedral of St. 
Sophia. It was not far from Muta that the Saracen 
army under Zaid was attacked by the imperial 
forces, and so severely handled that, after most of 
the officers had fallen, it was only saved from total 
destruction by the marvellous dexterity and prowess 
of Khalid, called henceforth the ' Sword of God.* 
The remnant made their way back in dejection to 
Medina : but they found Mohammed undismayed. 
Before October closed, he put 'Amr ibn al *Asi at 
the head of a small force to patrol the Syrian 
border, and deferred the more serious conflict till 
he had established his power over Arabia. The 

^ Sebeos, after saying that there was great gladness on that day, 
speaks of the ' weeping and sobbing and shedding of tears ' on the 
part of the Emperor and princes, the troops, and all the inhabitants 
of the city, so that ' nobody could sing the songs of the Lord/ 



Rise of Mohammed 145 

conquest of Mecca soon followed and the victory of 
Hunain — events which made the name of Mohammed 
ring through the remotest deserts of Arabia. 

Filled now with dreams of empire and blinded by 
his enthusiasm to every hindrance, he planned and 
openly proclaimed an expedition for the conquest of 
Palestine. But his project was received with a mis- 
giving which showed that the faith of many of his 
converts was not proof against the fame of Heraclius. 
Instead of the 100,000 well-equipped men whom he 
wanted, he found that, without the hypocrites and 
malingerers, he could only muster a miscellaneous 
force of 30,000. With that number he advanced to 
Tabuk, about half-way to Muta. There he spent ten 
days doing nothing. Probably the reports of his 
scouts deterred him from advancing further north, or 
he was forced to return by want of food or water. 
Certain it is that he went back to Medina, and spent 
a year in organizing an army fit to take the field. 
From Tabuk, however, various treaties were made 
with local chieftains, and Khalid with a band of 400 
horse surprised and captured the Christian chief of 
Dumah, who had to surrender his oasis, his town and 
castle, nearly three thousand camels, four hundred 
suits of mail armour, and finally his religion ^. 

On the whole the failure of Tabuk scarcely retarded 
the progress of Islam. With very few exceptions, 
the princes of Arabia now threw in their lot with 
Mohammed, and the * year of deputations ' practically 
saw the whole country united under a single man, 
whom all from motives of conviction or of policy 
agreed to regard as their sovereign king, their in- 
fallible general in war, and their God-sent prophet 

* Dr. Koelle's Mohammed and Mohammedanism,'^-^. 207-10. 



146 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

in religion. In the spring of 632 ^ Mohammed 
accompHshed his last pilgrimage to Mecca, where 
amidst countless throngs of believers he solemnly 
consecrated to Islam the whilom idolatrous shrine of 
the Kabbah, and established the ritual which still 
prevails. Two months later he sounded the trumpet 
for war against the Roman Empire, and gave the 
command of the expedition to Usamah, the son of 
his slave Zaid, who had been killed in the battle 
of Muta. But three days after the appointment of 
Usamah, the Prophet sickened of a fever, which 
carried him swiftly to his grave. 

By the death of Mohammed the cause of Islam 
was strengthened rather than weakened. For a 
moment it seemed to totter : but it was too firmly 
based to fall under any shock from within. Unlike 
the Emperor Heraclius, Mohammed died, if not at 
the summit of power, yet at a time when he had 
realized the dream of his life. He had no sense of 
failure to cloud his last moments, no feeling that he 
had outlived or tarnished his triumph. Indeed, had 
he possessed that gift of prophecy which he claimed, 
he might have known that the tremendous combina- 
tion of political and religious forces which he was 
bequeathing would almost avail in after-time to 
achieve the conquest of the world. 

Arabia was virtually united before the death of 
the Prophet. The fall of Chosroes had broken the 
last link of Persian dominion in Yaman and the south, 
while Heraclius made no effort to define or assert 
the somewhat shadowy authority of his Empire 
in the north of the peninsula. There seems no 
doubt too that the Arabian Christians were almost 

* March 9 is the date given, and ' seems to be fixed beyond 
dispute.' See Mr. R. L. Michell's Egyptian Calendar, p. 35. 



Rise of Mohammed 147 

all Monophysite, and that consequently they pro- 
foundly distrusted the Emperor's statecraft, and were 
weak to resist the Empire's enemies \ 

What little remained to be done towards binding 
Arabia under a single sovereignty was done by 
Abta Bakr, now chosen Caliph, i.e. khalifah, or suc- 
cessor to Mohammed. Within a single year he 
launched Usamah on a victorious expedition into 
Syria, and, by the aid of the fiery Khalid, crushed 
the rebellion of Musailama, the rival prophet who 
had sprung up in Yaman. The dying injunction of 
Mohammed was to drive every religion but Islam 
out of Arabia; and this seems to have been accom- 
plished almost at once. All the Christian commu- 
nities were swamped and extinguished, and all the 
art and culture and the learning which flourished 
among them perished. 

There is no complete picture of the arts in Arabia 
at this time : but some idea of the splendour they 
attained may be formed from the descriptions of the 
cathedral at Sana*, which the Muslims defiled and 
ruined. It was built by Abraha al Ashram, the vice- 
roy of the King of Abyssinia, somewhat later than 
the middle of the sixth century. So intense, we are 
told, was the King s interest in the building and de- 
coration of the fabric, that during the whole time he 
was living and sleeping in the church. In design the 
church was basilican. Lofty columns of precious 
marble divided the nave from the aisles. The 
spaces above the columns, the apse and the upper 
part of the walls, were adorned with magnificent mo- 
saics in gold and colours, or embellished with paint- 
ings. The lower part of the walls was panelled, and 
the floor was paved with marble of many hues set 

^ Wright's Early Christianity in Arabia, p. i8i. 
L 2 



148 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

in tasteful harmony. The choir was divided off by 
a screen of ebony inlaid with ivory most beautifully 
carved, and gold and silver ornament was lavished 
all over the interior. The doors were overlaid with 
plates of gold studded with silver nails, and plates of 
silver studded with massive nails of gold ; while the 
doors leading to the three altars were wrought with 
large panels of gold set with precious stones. On 
every panel there stood in relief a jewelled cross of 
gold with a red jacinth in the centre, and round 
about the cross were flowers of open-work in gold 
with gems or enamel of many colours. Such was the 
glorious church which Justinian aided Abraha to 
build ^ ; St. Sophia itself was hardly a more richly 
embellished .or a more glorious work of art. 

Even a brief sketch like this may serve in some 
sort as a picture of the civilization which Mohammed 
found in Arabia. But the artistic spirit of Islam was 
as yet undeveloped, and it saw in all this wealth and 
beauty mere matter for plunder or for iconoclasm. 
At what precise date this and other Christian build- 
ings were demolished, is uncertain. Wright thinks 
that few, if any. Christians were left in 632 2, and the 
buildings would hardly have been saved or turned 
into temples for Islam, as was done in other times 
and places. The Christian religion and Christian 
religious monuments were levelled by the first waves 

^ See Abu Salih, pp. 300-1, and the notes. Abu Salih's language 
might almost imply the existence of the cathedral when he wrote : 
but it is certain that he is merely following Tabari, though prob- 
ably an older MS. than we possess now. 

^ Op. cit., p. 187. Yet he quotes Asseman for a bishop of Sana* 
in the eighth century, and a priest of Yaman in the tenth. The 
titular bishop was probably an exile or a foreigner. Some very 
interesting information on Arabian Christianity before Islam may 
be found in F. M. E. Pereira's Historia dos Martyres de Nagran. 



Rise of Mohammed 149 

of that Muslim fanaticism which was originally 
directed rather against Jews and idolaters. Doubt- 
less the free use of pictures and frescoed figures in the 
Christian churches gave offence to the Muslims, and 
in some cases partially justified them in confounding 
Christian with heathen worship. However that may 
be, all Arabia now turned to the Ka'bah and obeyed 
the Kuran. Whether Christian, Jew, or idolater by 
religion, whether Abyssinian or Persian, Negro or 
Arab by race, the people were now brought under 
one form of faith and worship, and one form of 
government. 

The Saracen Empire thus founded was really a 
federal republic under the hegemony of Mecca. Abu 
Bakr and the other leaders saw, as Mohammed had 
seen, that the one thing needed to weld the body 
politic — to give it complete solidity and cohesion — 
was foreign conquest. To the Arabs, as to the Jews 
of old, Palestine was the land of promise, flowing 
with milk and honey. The love of military adven- 
ture was in their blood ; their brain was fired by the 
consciousness of a divine mission. Such a combina- 
tion of motive has always proved formidable, and 
and was now to prove wellnigh irresistible. 

' This is to acquaint you that I propose to send 
the true believers into Syria to take it out of the 
hands of the infidels. And I would have you know 
that fighting for religion is an act of obedience to 
God \' So ran Abu Bakr's letter summoning the 
princes and chiefs of Arabia to muster their forces 
at Medina. A large army was quickly formed, and 
after some delay went forward under the generalship 
of Yazld ibn Abi Sufiyan, with 'Amr ibn al *Asl in 
command of a division. It was a bold idea to 
* Ockley, p. 93. 



150 The A rab Conquest of Egypt 

challenge the Roman and the Persian Empire at once 
to combat, but less daring than it seems. For just 
as it is a mistake to picture the people of Arabia as 
all idolaters before Mohammed, so it is a mistake to 
imagine them as a race apart, a race severed from 
the world by impassable deserts and living unknown, 
till the new force of Islam enabled their hosts to leap 
across the wilderness and burst upon the nations of 
the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. 
The weakness of Byzantium and Persia, the quarrels 
and hatreds of Christendom, the flame of their own 
enthusiasm, their hopes of plunder in this life and 
dreams of delight in the next — all these were power- 
ful factors in the success of the Saracen invaders ; 
but perhaps even more powerful than all other causes 
was the fact that they had closest racial affinities 
with a large part of the population they invaded. 
From time immemorial the borders of Syria and 
Persia, and the country east of those borders, had 
been overrun by Beduin Arabs, sometimes settled, 
sometimes nomadic^ and moving for trade or war 
freely within the heart of both Empires ^ Some of 
the principal tribes were nominally subject to Hera- 
clius,some toChosroes; others were independent; and 
most of them were ready to throw their sword into 
either scale, as the interest of the moment demanded 2. 
Saracen scouts accompanied the armies of Heraclius. 

^ Even in the fourth century we read of Saracens playing a 
striking part in the defence of Constantinople against the Goths. 
See Dr. Hodgkin's Italy and Her Invaders, vol. i. p. 284 (Oxford, 
1892). 

^ Thus Zachariah of Mitylene speaks of Saracens raiding Roman 
territory by order of the Persian King; p. 206. Again, on pp. 222 
and 233 they are described as acting against the Romans. Yet 
on p. 232 we read of ' Saracens of Arabia ' fighting under Justinian's 
banners to quell the Samaritan revolt. 



Rise of Mohammed 151 

Yet almost the first of his victories in Asia Minor 
was, as George of Pisldia relates ^, won over a horde 
of * long-haired Saracens ' who were devastating the 
country. The Roman army at Muta is said to 
have been largely composed of Beduin troops; and 
on the other hand the conquest of Syria and of Egypt 
by Chosroes had been doubtless in some measure 
aided by troops of splendid Irregular cavalry recruited 
from among the Saracens. 

Here then was a vast amount of fighting material 
for the Muslim leaders akin to that of their own 
armies ; to make it available they only required to set 
it ablaze with their own fanatical belief. At the very 
outset the task was not remarkably easy, since vast 
numbers of the Arabs professed Christianity 2. Many 
of these Christian Arabs fought to the last for the 
Empire and the Cross ^ ; others were not proof against 
the contagion of race ; and while some threw off a faith 
which sat loosely upon them at best, some also ob- 
served a cautious neutrality, till they could safely 
range their forces on the winning side. Still the 
ties of race told largely in favour of the Muslims. 

One more general remark may be pardoned. 
Among the causes of the Muslim success must be 

^ De Exped. Pers. Aero. ii. 209. 

^ St. Simeon Stylites was an Arab by birth, and furnishes an 
example of fanaticism on the Christian side, though one hesitates 
so to call an innocent, if mistaken, form of self-sacrifice. 

^ See for example Ockley's account of the battle of Yermouk, 
pp. 194 seq. : also for the reference to Christian Arabs, id. pp. 144-5, 
172, 228-9, 232, &c. John Moschus gives an anecdote of a stranger 
meeting a Saracen woman and putting to her quite naturally the 
question 'Are you a Christian or a heathen ? ' (Pr. Spir. cap. 136). 
This of course was before Islam. But communities of Christian 
Arabs survived the Muslim conquest of Palestine : for Abu '1 Faraj 
mentions a bishop of the Christian Arabs in the early eighth 
century (Barhebraeus, Chron. Eccles. t. i. col. 294). 



152 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

mentioned the strange despondency which seized the 
Christians — a despondency as marked as the enthu- 
siasm of the MusHms. ' While the Church was vexed 
by kings and godless priests,' says Cedrenus, * there 
rose up Amalek of the desert to chastise us for our 
sins/ Such are the words in which he records the 
rise of Islam ; and brief as they are, they yet reveal 
a consciousness that Mohammed had a kind of divine 
mission — at least as the scourge of God — a conscious- 
ness which is betrayed very clearly by other Christian 
writers of this time, such as the Armenian Sebeos \ 
Of course it is a common reflection with a defeated 
people that they have suffered for their sins, nor is the 
reflection always ill-founded in fact or in philosophy ; 
but there seems in these writers a touch of more 
tragic sorrow, a sense that Christianity in dealing 
with the Arabs had been weighed in the balance 
and found w^anting, that it could no longer claim a 
monopoly of divine guidance. It is easy to see how 
powerfully the cause of Islam was aided by sombre 
misgivings of this kind in the heart of Christian 
priests and warriors. Luke, the traitor of Aleppo, 
was taught by a priest that the Saracens were des- 
tined to conquer the country, and Basil, the traitor 
of Tyre, who owed his defection to the teaching of 
the monk Bahirah, had himself preached the gospel 

^ His language is very curious : * At that time a certain man of 
the sons of Ishmael whose name was Mohammed, a merchant, 
appeared to his people, as it were by the order of God, preaching 
the truth. . . . Inasmuch as the command was from on high, by 
his sole behest all came together in a union of law, and forsaking 
vain idols, returned to the living God, who had appeared to their 
father Abraham. Mohammed bid them not to eat of unslaughtered 
meat, or to drink wine, or to tell a lie, or to commit fornication/ 
Sebeos, it must be remembered, was not only a Christian, but a 
bishop. 



Rise of Mohammed 153 

of Islam through the Empire \ Though these and 
the like stories come mainly from Arab sources, and 
may be classed as legends, yet they have at least 
this much historical foundation, that they record 
among some of the Christians a certain fearful fore- 
boding of the truth and the triumph of Islam. 

^ Ockley, pp. 230, 252. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE ARAB CONQUEST OF SYRIA 

Heraclius' lost opportunity. Journey to Edessa. Persecution 
of dissentients. Sophronius made Patriarch of Jerusalem. 
Embassies of congratulation to Heraclius. Alliance between Jews 
and Arabs. Fall of Damascus. Theodore defeated by Khalid. 
The Emperor's farewell to Syria. Rescue of the Holy Rood. 
Surrender of Jerusalem to Omar. 

When Heraclius ended his sojourn in Jerusalem 
and bent his steps again northward through Pales- 
tine, he cannot have realized the danger from Islam. 
The figure of Mohammed was already towering over 
Arabia, and its colossal shadow had actually fallen 
on the edge of the Roman Empire ; but the Emperor 
saw in it nothing but the menace of one of those 
border wars with wild desert tribes which were 
a normal condition of the frontier. For if he had 
divined the real nature of the peril, he could hardly 
have delayed to grapple with it : and if he had 
taken in time those measures which his genius 
might have designed, and for which his resources, 
though weakened, were still equal, he would very 
probably have crushed the Saracen power in its 
beginnings and have wiped out the name of Moham- 
med from the book of history. 

But it was not to be. Duty seemed to call the 
Emperor away from the south, and his thoughts were 
preoccupied with the work of settling the frontier 
towns under the treaty with Persia, and of reorgan- 
izing the finance and the whole administration of 
the eastern provinces, which had been thrown out 
of joint by six years of war. Above all he was 



Arab Conquest of Syria 155 

now about to carry out those plans for the reh'glous 
union of Christendom which, as we have seen, had 
so long been maturing in his mind. He aimed at 
a union of compromise, not of compulsion. The 
wisdom of the leaders of the Church could devise 
the magic formula required : and then, when all the 
elements of heresy, discord, and difference were cast 
into the crucible and molten, and there emerged 
one simple form of faith, refined and purified and 
annealed against all schism, what a tremendous 
force would the new Christianity possess against 
the enemies of the Empire and the Cross ! 

On quitting Jerusalem the Emperor made straight 
for Mesopotamia ^ His route lay through Damas- 
cus, Emesa, Beroea, and Hierapolis to Edessa. 
Edessa was the home of his ancestors : it was the 
home of St. Ephrem, the father of the Syrian 
Church 2 : and as the see of Jacobus Barudaeus, it 
was the very shrine of the Jacobite or Monophysite 
confession, which prevailed in the three hundred 
monasteries in the neighbourhood and in most parts 
of Armenia, Syria, and Egypt. Edessa also, from 
its geographical position between the Euphrates and 
the Tigris, its proximity to Armenia, Persia, and 
Syria, was a political centre of enormous import- 
ance. There could be no more fitting place for the 
work which the Emperor had now to accomplish. 

The tangle of events at this period is most diffi- 
cult to unravel. A few threads are clear here in 
one chronicle ; a few there in another ; but so dis- 
connected that hardly the most patient labour can 
bring them into order. It was, however, at Hiera- 
polis, and in 631, that the Emperor launched his 

^ Sebeos. 

^ Drapeyron, p. 286: see also p. 299 for what follows. 



156 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

project for the union of the Church, and made Atha- 
nasius Archbishop of Antioch and Cyrus Arch- 
bishop of Alexandria. The latter appointment was 
a ruinous miscalculation. We shall soon have to 
follow the journey of Cyrus to Egypt, and to see 
what shipwreck the Emperor's project there suffered, 
as it encountered not only the resistance of the 
Melkite Sophronius and his followers, but also the 
opposition of nearly the whole Coptic priesthood 
and people. We shall see also how Cyrus, baffled 
in his hopes of peaceably converting the Egyptians 
to Monothelitism, issued a declaration of war against 
their Church, and madly strove to goad the Copts 
into changing their creed by persecution. 

It was a similar failure in Syria which led to a 
similar persecution of the Syrian Christians. While 
Cyrus was undoing the work of Heraclius conquests 
and making smooth the way for Islam in Egypt, 
much the same process went on in Syria ; although 
on the one hand Athanasius seems to have shown 
a forbearance and a tact totally wanting in Cyrus, 
and on the other hand the presence of the Emperor 
may have tended both to reduce friction and to 
repress dissension ^ But the evil results of the 

^ Abu '1 Faraj (Barhebraeus) gives a totally different account of 
the relations of Anastasius to the Emperor {Chron. Eccles. t. i. col. 
271-4). He alleges that at Edessa the communion was refused to 
Heraclius : that at Mabug Athanasius and twelve bishops presented 
to Heraclius their confession of faith, which he read and praised, 
but he urged them to accept the faith of Chalcedon. Upon their 
refusal Heraclius wrote an edict for all his Empire : ' Whosoever 
refuses obedience to the synod, let his nose and ears be cut off, and 
his house be thrown down/ Many conversions followed, while the 
people of Emesa and others showed great barbarity, and many 
churches and monasteries were destroyed. It is not easy to under- 
stand this : but it evidently comes from a writer who has no 



Arab Conquest of Syria 157 

Emperor's Church policy declared themselves un- 
mistakably a little later. After a passionate but 
vain appeal to Cyrus at Alexandria, the able and 
learned Sophronius took ship to Constantinople for 
the purpose of pleading his cause before the Patri- 
arch Sergius. Sergius, however — one of the most 
powerful prelates who ever swayed the destinies of 
the Eastern Church — was himself prime author of 
the Monothelite compromise : he could not dis- 
avow it, and all the astute and subtle refinement 
of his logic and the winning persuasiveness of his 
manner failed to move either the reason or the 
heart of Sophronius, who betook himself sadly back 
to Syria. 

It seems probable that Sophronius made his way 
at once to Heraclius in order to strive with him as 
he had striven with Cyrus and with Sergius. There 
is no specific record of such an interview : but it 
consists with what is known, and without it one can 
hardly explain the undoubted fact that Sophronius 
was now appointed by Heraclius to the archbishopric 
of Jerusalem, which had been left vacant since 
Modestus died on his journey northward with the 

sympathy with the Monothelite opinions with which Athanasius is 
credited, and which he doubtless professed, even if he abandoned 
them later. As regards the further difficulty that Athanasius was 
Patriarch of Antioch long before any arrangement with Heraclius — 
we have seen that his visit to Egypt in that capacity took place in 
615 — I think the explanation may well be as follows. On the 
Persian occupation of Syria in 614 Athanasius was de facto if not 
dejure driven from office. His formal reinstatement could only be 
made after the treaty of peace by authority of the Emperor. The 
Emperor offered to formally recognize Athanasius, Monophysite as 
he was, on the terms of the compromise. To this Athanasius 
agreed, but after his reinstatement he found that he could not carry 
his people with him : whereupon he frankly abandoned the com- 
promise. The Emperor then retorted by an edict of persecution. 



158 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Emperor. It is certain that Sophronius never 
wavered in his hostility to the compromise. Almost 
his first act as Patriarch was to call a council of 
the Church, at which he denounced in unsparing 
language the Emperor s proposals and anathematized 
the Patriarchs who adopted them^ In accepting 
the office he had doubtless hoped that the Emperor 
would renounce the Monothelite heresy and return 
to the orthodox religion, while the Emperor thought 
that the gift of a patriarchate would convert 
Sophronius, as it had converted Athanasius. Next 
to the appointment of Cyrus, Heraclius could 
hardly have made a more disastrous blunder : it is 
scarcely too much to say that it went nearly as far 
to cost him the loss of Palestine as did the appoint- 
ment of Cyrus to cost him the loss of Egypt. 

It is easy to palliate these mistakes if one remem- 
bers the grandeur of the aim and the nobility of the 
motive which originally prompted them. But in 
Syria as in Egypt, the failure of the Emperors 
Church policy turned to a gloomy intolerance of 
opposition. It was but a step from this to perse- 
cution, and his masterful but embittered spirit knew 
no hesitation. ' When our people complained to 
Heraclius,' says Abu '1 Faraj, 'he gave no answer. 
Therefore the God of vengeance delivered us out 
of the hands of the Romans by means of the Arabs. 
Then although our churches were not restored to 
us, since under Arab rule each Christian commu- 
nity retained its actual possessions, still it profited 
us not a little to be saved from the cruelty of the 
Romans and their bitter hatred against us '^! It is 

^ See the Epistola Synodica ad Sergium written by Sophronius. 
It is given in Migne, Pair. Gr. t. 87 (3), col. 3193. 

2 Op. cit., 274. Abu 'I Faraj writes as a Monophysite Syrian. 



Arab Conquest of Syria 159 

melancholy reading, this welcome by Christians of 
Arab rule as a providential delivery from the rule 
of their fellow Christians ; but it shows with fatal 
clearness how impossible was the Emperor's scheme 
for Church union, and how surely it led to his ruin. 

There remains the third capital blunder, which 
has been already mentioned — the massacre of the 
Jews. It was the first in chronological order, and 
the first to bear baleful fruit. Shortly after the 
-triumphal Exaltation of the Cross at Jerusalem, 
when the order went forth to banish or slay the 
Jews, all who had warning in time fled into the 
desert beyond Jordan, there to tarry a change of 
fortune. As they waited and watched, their hearts 
burning for revenge, at length they saw the advanc- 
ing banners of Islam, and they welcomed the hosts 
that came as enemies of the Roman Empire. 

While clouds were thus gathering thickly on the 
horizon, the fame of Heraclius' achievements had 

Precisely the same spirit is shown elsewhere by the writer (col. 
266-7) where he says that Chosroes sided with the Monophysite 
Syrians, drove out the Chalcedonian bishops from all the land, and 
restored all the churches which Domitian, bishop of Melitina, had 
taken from the Monophysites in the days of Maurice. ' The memory 
of the Chalcedonians was wiped out from the Euphrates to the 
East : for" God had visited on their heads their own crime, so that 
they received at the hands of the Persians retribution for all the 
evil they had wrought us.' It is the old story of Christians 
sacrificing country, race, and religion in order to triumph over 
a rival sect of Christians. So some fifteen years after the taking of 
Damascus we find a Nestorian bishop writing thus : * These Arabs, 
to whom God has given in our time the dominion . . . fight not 
against the Christian religion; nay, rather they defend our faith, 
they revere our priests and saints, and they make gifts to our 
churches and monasteries/ The great church at Damascus was 
then used at the same time both by Christians and by Muslims 
(De Goeje's Conquete de la Syrie, p. 84). 



i 



i6o The A rab Conquest of Egypt 

spread over the known world, and princes from the 
farthest East and the farthest West — from India and 
from France^ — sent envoys with costly jewels and 
tributes of admiration. But the Emperor was 
soon reminded of the mockery of his destiny. For 
almost at the very time when he was receiving these 
marks of world-wide homage, the Saracens were 
thundering at the gates of Assyria, and his own son 
Athalaric and his nephew Theodore were plotting 
with some Armenians to dethrone and murder him. 
The plot was denounced by one of the conspirators, 
and all the guilty had their noses and right hands 
cut o£f^, except the aspet, who had refused to agree 
to the assassination and was rewarded by a merciful 
sentence of exile ^ 

It seems to have been after this event, and after 
the sojourn of Heraclius at Edessa, that the Jews 
held a gathering in the town at which, according to 
Sebeos, all the twelve tribes were represented. 
Finding the place denuded of troops, as the Persian 
garrison had withdrawn and had not been replaced 
by the Romans, the Jews closed the gates, strength- 
ened the defences, and defied the Emperor s forces. 
Heraclius laid siege to the town, which quickly 
capitulated : he granted easy terms, and told the 
Jews to return peaceably to their own places. In- 
stead of obeying, they went into the desert and 
joined the armies of Islam, to which they acted as 
guides through the country ^ This must have been 

^ Drapeyron, p. 228. 

^ On the barbarity of some punishments still sanctioned by law 
see Prof. Bury's History of the Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 390 : 
also his edition of Gibbon, vol. v. p. 529, note on Graeco-Roman 
Law. 

^ The story is told with considerable detail by Sebeos. 

* This incident is recorded by Sebeos. Another Armenian 



Arab Conquest of Syria i6i 

about the year 634, when already the Saracens 
under Khalld were overrunning Persia. 

The result of this alliance between the Jews and 
the Arabs was a demand upon Heraclius to give 
back the promised land to the children of Abraham : 
else they would claim their inheritance with usury. 
There could be but one answer to such a summons, 
and war began. The defeat of the Romans under 
Theodore at Gabatha was followed by the more 
serious disaster of Yermouk, Sept. i, 634. In the 
previous July Ab{i Bakr had died and was succeeded 
by Omar as Caliph. Bosrah had already fallen. 
Damascus, the ancient capital of Syria, was belea- 
guered by Khalld, and was finally surrendered by 
the Prefect Mansur under a treaty which secured 
the life and property of the inhabitants, and their 
undisturbed possession of the churches in the city. 
This was in 635: and 'all the patriarchs and 
bishops in all the world smote Mansur with ana- 
thema, because he helped the Muslims \' Before 
the city fell, Heraclius sent a large army under his 

historian, Ghevond, agrees that the Jews invited the Arabs to turn 
the Romans out of Palestine. Ghevond^s date is the eighth century. 
A French translation by Shahnazarian was published in Paris, 
1856. Drapeyron says (p. 327) that there was a renewed massacre 
of the Jews at Edessa, and gives Sebeos as his authority, but 
I can find no such statement. But this revolt of the Jews seems 
identical with the revolt of the Arabs described by Cedrenus as 
happening after the death of Mohammed. These Arabs had been 
in the pay of the Emperor and were employed to guard the desert 
passes. Their subsidy now being refused, Xv7rr]6€VT€<s aTnjXOov Trpos 
Tov? ofio^vXovs /cat <ji}Sifyr}(rav avTovs €7rt t^v ^(opav Trj<s Vd^7]<s (ttoixlov 
ovcrav tyjs ipi^fjiov Kara to iStvatov 6po<s. In any case this revolt of 
the Arabs assisted the Muslim armies in much the same way as the 
defection of the Jews. For the fact that Heraclius made a systematic 
persecution of the Jews, see Prof. Bury's Lafer Roman Empire^ 
vol. ii, p. 215. ^ Eutychius. 

BUTLER M 



i62 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

brother Theodore, whose superior forces fought 
a desperate battle with Khalid. The result long 
hung in doubt, but victory swayed at last to the 
Muslims, and the rout of the Byzantine legions was 
complete. Heraclius received the news at Antioch\ 
and felt that all was over. God has abandoned the 
cause of the Empire : the victor of the Persian heathen 
was vanquished by the unbelieving Saracens. The 
thought was rendered the more bitter, because he 
was conscious of the guilt he had incurred by his 
marriage with his niece Martina. He was conscious 
too of already breaking health of body. On no 
other theory can his inaction be explained. The 
man who was foremost in every fight where his 
personal courage was needed, and master of every 
movement on the battlefield — the man who six 
years ago would have met Khalid ' the Sword of 
God ' on equal terms in duel, and whose genius as 
a tactician would have baffled and crushed the raw 
valour of the Arab chieftains, never once led an 
army in the field against them. His hand and his 
brain alike were paralysed. In the great assembly 
which he called in the Cathedral at Antioch, when 
he asked for counsel, there stood up a greybeard 
who said, * The Romans now are suffering for their 
disobedience to the Gospel, for their quarrels and 
dissensions, their usury and violence : they must 
pay the price of their sins.* It was enough : the 
Emperor felt that with body, mind, and fortune 
failing his presence was useless, and in Sept. 636 he 
took ship for Constantinople 2. 

^ This seems the more probable account. Cedrenus, however, 
makes Theodore after his defeat return to the King at Edessa. 
Gibbon strangely says, ' In his palace of Constantinople or Antioch 
he was awakened by the invasion of Syria' (ch. 51). 

^ See De Goeje, Conquete de la Syricy p. 102, where the date of 



Arab Conquest of Syria 163 

* Farewell, a long farewell to Syria ! ' There is 
infinite pathos in the well-known words of the Em- 
peror : they are charged with the feeling that his 
career w^ith all its splendour and triumph is closing 
in shame — that he is bidding farewell to his 
greatness. One thinks of the agony of Napoleon, 
as from the deck of the Bellerophon he gazed his 
last on France \ Indeed the decline of physical 
and military vigour in the two great generals has 
many points of resemblance. But Napoleon after 
all was king and commander at the very last of his 
battles ; whereas Heraclius had spent his strength 
in the futile struggle to unite the Church. He was 
unable to rally or guide the remaining forces of the 
Empire in the hour of supreme danger. During 
three years of crisis his 'hopes had decayed and his 
activities had withered. He had suffered the power 
of Isldm to grow unchecked, till it overshadowed his 
dominion. 

Most of the historians, following or misconstruing 
the Greek writers, represent Heraclius as suddenly 
bounding out of this torpor and making a frantic 
journey to Jerusalem to save the Holy Rood from 
the hands of the enemy 2. There is no warrant for 

Heraclius' departure is given as Sha'ban, a. h. 15. The evidence 
that he journeyed by land is by no means conclusive. 

^ Lord Rosebery's Napoleon^ p. 112 (London, 1900). 

^ Drapeyron, p. 349, says, ' Tou jours est-il que ce hardi fugitif 
courut au Calvaire, arracha la Sainte-Croix au patriarche Sophrone, 
son possesseur legitime, et traversa le Liban au milieu des popu- 
lations stupdfaites ! ' He cites Nicephorus, Theophanes, Cedrenus, 
and Suidas. Lebeau takes the same view, and Prof. Bury {Later 
Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 266) remarks, ' He was able, notwith- 
standing the proximity of the Saracens, to hurry to Jerusalem and 
seize the Cross, which he was resolved to prevent from falling again 
into the hands of unbelievers/ Now I venture to say that all this 

M 2 



164 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

this journey beyond the statement that Heraclius 
took the Cross with him to Constantinople. Un- 
questionably he did : but he did not travel to 
Jerusalem to fetch it. The loose and open phrases 
of Cedrenus and the like cannot stand for a moment 
against the precise and clear story of Sebeos. He 
tells how after the battle of Yermouk the Arabs 
crossed the Jordan, and the terror of them fell upon 
all the inhabitants of that country, so that they gave 
in their submission : and he adds, ' In that night,' 
i.e. the night after the news of the Saracen advance 

story rests on a misconception. To begin with Nicephorus. His 
account of Heraclius' movements is a tissue of error. He represents 
Heraclius as taking the Cross to Jerusalem before his triumphal 
peturn to the capital, as going through the hurried ceremony of 
Exaltation, and then at once removing the Cross to Constanti- 
nople ! Heraclius is recalled to the East when the Saracens are 
ravaging the country round Antioch ; and, while he is still in the 
East, the Saracens are conquering Egypt I It is clear that 
Nicephorus, being hopelessly confused about this period, is of 
small value as an authority, and also that he does not make the par- 
ticular statement attributed to him. The reference to Theophanes 
is equally unwarranted. Theophanes says that the Emperor, 
abandoning Syria in despair, apas xat ra Tt/xia ^vAa, hrX rr^v Kcov- 
(rrai/TivovTroAtv o.-kt^^i. There is no word of any journey to Jeru- 
salem. Cedrenus in copying the words of Theophanes inserts 
after ^vka " 0.1:0 'lepoa-oXvixwv" but the insertion rests on a mere 
inference from the fact that the Cross was known to have been left 
in Jerusalem. Suidas after speaking of the Exaltation of the Cross 
says in another sentence, ' And the Emperor sent it to Byzantium.* 
Thus not one of Drapeyron's four authorities proves his statement. 
J must add the remark that Theophanes is hardly less untrust- 
worthy on these few years than Nicephorus. For example, he puts 
the flight of Heraclius before the battle of Yermouk and before the 
•capture of Damascus by the Saracens. Directly after the capture 
comes the Saracen expedition to Egypt, and Theophanes* story of 
what happened there is as false as it is fragmentary. In dealing 
with the conquest of Egypt these Byzantine writers more often 
darken than illumine the page of history. 



Arab Conquest of Syria 165 

came, * the people of Jerusalem saved the Cross of 
the Lord, and all the vessels of the churches, and 
bringing them to the sea-coast they sent them on 
board ship to the court at Constantinople/ Not a 
word about Heraclius in this: but the vessel with 
the sacred treasures doubtless coasted northward 
and joined the Emperor either at some port on 
his homeward journey, if he travelled home by 
sea, or at his palace at Hieria near Chalcedon, 
where he stayed for some time in a state of pitiful 
derangement \ Thence ultimately he bore the Rood 
once again to the Cathedral of St. Sophia. It 
had been hailed with triumph as the talisman of 
his prosperity : it was now received in gloom as 
the symbol and seal of his adversity. Surely of 
all the ironies that haunt the career of Heraclius 
none are more pointed or more bitter than this. 

So far then from the Cross being torn from the 
hands of Sophronius, its lawful owner, it is clear that 
the Patriarch himself sent away all the treasures of the 
Church, and resigned them to the Emperor's keeping. 
It was the only way to save them. His enemy 
Cyrus was still at Alexandria : besides, it was not 
long since Egypt had fallen into the hands of the 
Persians, and there was at least risk of a Saracen 
conquest. But all the storms of the late wars had 
beaten in vain upon Constantinople : it was the in- 
violate city, as well as the metropolis of the Empire. 

But this act of loyalty to Heraclius, if loyalty 
it were, proved the last in the life of Sophronius. 
Jerusalem was now beleaguered by Khilid, who was 
joined in a few days by Abu *Ubaidah. The place 
had been well provisioned, and the bulwarks had 

^ His so-called ^ hydrophobia,' which came on at Hieria, was 
really the fear of wide open spaces, not of water. 



i66 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

been rebuilt and strengthened since the Persian 
occupation ; so that the Arabs, who had no skill in 
siege warfare and no siege engines, prowled round 
the walls for months, exchanging volleys of arrows 
and repelling sallies of the garrison, but making 
no substantial progress. It had taken the Persian 
general but eighteen days to force an entrance : now 
even the fiery Khalid chafed in helpless wrath under 
the cliffs and towers of Jerusalem. Authorities differ 
as regards the length of the siege. It seems to 
have lasted all through the winter of 636-7, and 
probably longer : but there is no doubt of the issue. 
The Saracens were quite unable to take the town by 
storm, while the defenders failed no less to break 
the leaguer. From the Roman armies there came 
no hope of help — only stories of ever fresh disaster 
— ^^and the same despondency which had seized the 
Emperor now fell upon the inhabitants of the Holy 
City. 

Under these circumstances, and probably under 
pressure of imminent famine, the aged ^ Patriarch 
Sophronius parleyed with the Arab leaders from the 
walls, and finally agreed to surrender, if Omar would 
come in person to settle the capitulation. It is 
needless here to repeat the well-known story of 
Omar's arrival on his camel ; how by his uncouth 
mien, his coarse fare, and his shabby raiment the 
Caliph shocked Roman refinement; how he set his 
seal to the treaty, and forthwith visited the Holy 
Places in company with Sophronius ; and how the 
Patriarch said aside to his attendants in Greek, 'Truly 
this is that abomination of desolation spoken of by 
Daniel the Prophet.* It is the last recorded remark 

^ Sophronius, as appears from John Moschus, must now have 
been well over seventy. 



Arab Conquest of Syria 167 

of the * honey-tongued defender of the faith ^ ' : for 
the second time in his latter years he had witnessed 
the captivity of Zion, and the bitterness of this 
second captivity quickly ended his life. 

^ Sophronius was so called : see Mansi, Conciliorum Nova 
Collech'o, t. X. col. 607. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE GREAT PERSECUTION OF THE COPTS BY 
CYRUS 

Benjamin called to the patriarchate of the Copts. George, the 
Melkite Patriarch, successor to Andronicus. Popularity of Benjamin, 
and his reforms. Evacuation of Egypt by the Persians. Cyrus 
appointed Patriarch of the Roman Church by Heraclius. Arrival 
of Cyrus in Alexandria and flight of Benjamin. Sophronius heads 
the Roman opposition to Cyrus — in vain. Resistance of the Copts. 
The Ecthesis of Heraclius never understood by the Copts. 
Complete restoration of Roman dominion in Egypt The Ten 
Years' Persecution: various incidents. Its general effect in pre- 
paring the way for the Arab conquest. 

We have now followed the Emperor from the day 
of his triumph in Jerusalem, when he reached the 
summit of his victorious splendour, to the day of his 
farewell at Antioch, when the great conqueror sank, 
with brain and nerve past action, in the depths of 
failure and. gloom : we have seen how from a little 
cloud on the southern borders of Palestine there 
slowly arose, like the form of a jinn in Arab romance, 
the giant figure of Mohammed, and how the ever- 
growing Muslim power grappled and wrestled with 
the Roman Empire in Syria, till it overthrew it and 
captured first Damascus and then the Holy City : 
and we have touched lightly on some of the causes 
which worked together to produce these world- 
astonishing changes. 

Brief as the survey has been, and needful for the 
right understanding of the great drama in which 
Egypt played a large part, it has still taken us away 
too long from the Nile valley. It is therefore full 
time to return and to trace there the course of 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 169 

events from the beginning of the six years' war, 
which ended in the death of Chosroes. Unfor- 
tunately the records for this period are few and far 
from luminous : one has to grope through it as best 
one may by the feeble light they furnish. 

One of the few monasteries in the neighbourhood 
of Alexandria which escaped destruction in the first 
storm of the Persian invasion was Dair Kibrius, 
which nestled amidst its palm-groves close to the 
shore north-eastward of the city and of the buildings 
which were plundered ^ It was here that a young 
man called Benjamin, the scion of a wealthy Coptic 
family and a native of Farshut in the province of 
Buhairah, came and received the monastic habit 
from the aged superior Theonas. His education 
was aided by great natural talent, and in no long 
time he outstripped his teachers both in piety and in 
learning. It was his wont often to spend the night 
in prayer within the convent church ; and legend 
tells that once, as he watched, there came to his ears 
a voice declaring that he was destined to be the 
Shepherd of the flock of Christ. Theonas, on hear- 
ing the story, told him to beware of the wiles of 
Satan, naively adding that such a thing had never 
happened either to himself or to any of the brethren 
during all the fifty years he had lived at Dair Kibrius. 
Nevertheless he went with Benjamin to Alexandria, 
and there brought him before the Coptic Patriarch, 
Andronicus, who was so struck with Benjamin's 
ability and strength of character, that he kept him in 
the city, while Theonas was sent back alone to his 
monastery. Benjamin was in due course ordained 
to the priesthood, and, remaining by the Patriarch, 

^ See above, p. 75 n. This story is from Severus' Lives of the 
Patriarchs ^Benjamin)) Brit. Mus. MS., pp. 102 seq. 



170 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

won his fullest confidence,' and 'aided him in the 
affairs of the Church and the administration of the 
whole patriarchate.' 

It was about Christmastide, a.d. 621, that Ben- 
jamin first entered Dair Kibritjs ; and he had not 
been many months in the service of Andronicus, 
when the Patriarch died, after nominating Benjamin 
as his successor. Benjamin at this time is described 
as a young man, and was probably some thirty-five 
years old \ but the pallium was duly placed on his 
shoulders in St. Mark's Cathedral. 

We have already seen that, although Andronicus 
was not driven from office by the Persian conquest, 
the Melkite Patriarch, John the Almoner, fled before 
it to die in Cyprus. The successor of John in the 
Melkite chair was George : but the Byzantine power 
had been rooted out of Egypt, and there is little to 
show that even the nominal appointment of George 
took place before 621. Still less can it be shown at 
what date George's appointment was made effective 
by residence in Alexandria ^. It is even questioned 

^ Benjamin died on 8 Tubah, 662, after a pontificate of thirty- 
nine years. Severus gives the same date, 8 Tubah (=3 January) 
for the death of Andronicus, and though the exact coincidence is 
improbable, Andronicus may well have died on some day in Tubah. 
But taking Benjamin's reign as lasting from January 623 to 
January 662, and bearing in mind that he is described by Severus 
as suffering greatly ' from, the infirmities of old age ' in his latter 
years, I cannot think that Benjamin was less than seventy-five at 
his death : nor would the canons allow the consecration of a 
Patriarch at an age below thirty-five years, because he is required 
to be ' of middle age.' 

* See note above, p. 53. Eutychius indeed says that George 
took ship and fled from Alexandria, when he heard that the 
Muslims had conquered the Romans, taken Palestine, and were 
advancing on Egypt {Annales, ed. Pococke, t. ii. p. 266). But 
this story falls to pieces on the chronology, and is probably a 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 171 

whether he ever set foot in the country. From 
neither the Persians nor the Copts could he hope 
for any welcome, nor would his coming have served 
much purpose until the return of the Byzantine 
garrisons established again the Church and the 
Empire in Egypt. The Persians under the pressure 
of Heraclius' victories evacuated the country early 
in the year 627 ; and just as there is record of the 
existence of a civil ruler of Egypt in the interval 
between that date and the advent of Cyrus as 
governor, so it may be that George the Patriarch 
entered Alexandria in 627, and there remained until, 
as John of Nikiou seems to imply, he was superseded 
by the same Cyrus as Patriarch. But it is more 
probable that Georges arrival took place rather 
later. The conclusion of peace with Persia in 628 
gradually released some of the Roman forces, but 
only gradually : and the Roman military reoccupa- 
tion of Egypt can hardly have been accomplished 

reminiscence of the flight of John the Almoner. On the other 
hand, John of Nikiou mentions (Zotenberg, p. 571) Philiades, 
brother of George the Patriarch, and three pages lower (p. 574) 
occur these words: ' Avant Tarriv^e du patriarche Cyrus, Georges, 
qui avait ixi nomme par Hdraclius le Jeune, avait ixi traitd avec 
ddfdrence par le gouverneur Anastase. Lorsqu'il fut vieux, son 
autorit^ s'^tendit sur toutes les affaires. Le patriarche lui-meme 
lui laissait son autorit^.' Zotenberg in his note says that ' Heraclius 
the Elder ' should be written for ' Heraclius the Younger/ and with 
this view Dr. Charles agrees. It seems therefore that the George 
in question may be the Patriarch George. If so, it follows that 
(i) he did not die in 630 or 631, but was superseded by Cyrus; 

(2) he was living in Alexandria during the pontificate of Cyrus ; 

(3) that he retained, notwithstanding his deposition, great personal 
influence ; (4) that he was on friendly terms with Cyrus and acted 
as his Vicar-General during the latter's absence or exile from 
Egypt. All this is sufliciently novel and remarkable ; but it seems 
difiicult to resist this interpretation of John's language or to reject 
his testimony. 



172 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

much before 629. If George did not arrive in 
Alexandria till that year, and his office determined, 
whether by death or by supersession, a year or 
two later, it is easy to understand why his position 
in the records of the Church is so vague and 
shadowy \ 

When Andronicus, the Coptic Archbishop, passed 
away at the end of 622 or the beginning of 623, the 
Persian dominion in Egypt was not even menaced 
by any revival of the Roman power under Heraclius. 
There is little question that before his death the 
Patriarch heard news of the Emperor's first expedi- 
tion, which voyaged by Rhodes to Cilicia ; very pos- 
sibly too the gossip of Alexandria was enlivened by 
rumours brought by Arab caravans concerning the 
rising prophet of Mecca ; but not the wildest dreamer 
could have imagined that within a period of twenty 
years to come the Persians would be driven out of 
Egypt again by the Romans, and that the restored 
Roman power would be extinguished and closed for 
ever by the rude legions of Mohammed. 

Benjamin's election as Patriarch was a popular 
one : indeed, whatever doubt may be felt regarding 
the wisdom of Benjamin's after-policy, it cannot be 
denied that he won the love and veneration of his 
people, and retained them unimpaired through all the 
vicissitudes of the most eventful primacy in the 
Coptic history. But he made no weak concessions 
to laxity of faith or morals. From the first he set 
himself sternly to rebuke the careless lives of many 
among his clergy, and to check the abuses which had 

^ Renaudot does not question the current story of George's death, 
although by a slip he writes post Gregorii for post Georgii mortem. 
Hist, Pat. Alex. p. 161; and Von Gutschmid thinks that George 
probably died in June of 631 (Kleine Schrtften, t. ii. p. 475). 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 173 

grown up In many places where the bishops had lost 
all control in the tumult of war. He had been on 
a visit to Babylon ^ before his consecration, and now 
wrote a pastoral letter to all the bishops, in which 
he said : * During my stay at Hulwan and Babylon 
I saw a number of froward men, both priests and 
deacons ; my soul abhors their works. I write this 
letter to all the bishops bidding them hold an inquiry 
once a month concerning every one of the clergy who 
had been ordained for less than ten years.' This 
letter made it clear that he was Archbishop, says the 
chronicle ^, and he made it clearer still by excommu- 
nicating several clergy in this diocese of Babylon. 
The letter was followed by a visitation, in the course 
of which it is recorded that from Babylon he went 
on foot, ' accompanied by Abba Mina, bishop of the 
Castle of Babylon, and Pilihiu, bishop of Hulwdn, 
and a great crowd,' to bring to account a notorious 
offender, on whose house he called down fire from 
heaven. But wherever he passed, the people flocked 
to receive his benediction. 

So chastening and chastising the Church, the 
Archbishop made his power felt all over Egypt. 
Unquestionably he did much to restore the unity of 
the Coptic Church and to bring it back to that settled 
and organized government which had been disturbed, 
if not shattered, by the political troubles of the time. 
For four or five years ^ Benjamin lived peaceably 

* This is of course the Egyptian Babylon, in the region now 
misnamed * Old Cairo.' 

2 See the Bodleian Library MS. Copt. Clar. Press b. 5, and 
Am^lineau's translation entitled Fragments Copies pour servir a 
Vhistoire de la Conqjiek de I'^gypte in ih.Q Journal Asiatique, 1888. 
It is unfortunate that of this early Life of Benjamin in Coptic so 
small a fragment alone survives. 

' Severus says definitely that the Persians remained in Egypt for 



174 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

under Persian rule in Alexandria. There he first 
saw Shahin recalled to retrieve, if possible, the 
falling fortunes of Chosroes ; then, as Heraclius pre- 
vailed, he saw the departure of the Persian armies. 
With what eyes, we wonder, did the Patriarch watch 
the spearmen and bowmen of the unbelievers march 
out of the eastern gate of the Great City ? And what 
were his thoughts as he pondered on the coming 
return of the Romans ? 

Most of the Persian garrisons in Egypt were pro- 
bably withdrawn early in 627, while some few de- 
tached posts may have been held as late as 628 and 
evacuated under the terms of the treaty with Hera- 
clius. Then at least it was that the Egyptian 
prisoners from Dastagerd and other cities of Asia 
came back to their country ; and it was probably in 
the winter 628-9 that Heraclius, after his triumph at 
Constantinople, sent an army by sea to reoccupy 
Egypt and to restore the Roman Empire from 
Palestine to Pentapolis. 

Admirable as were Heraclius' motives in raising 
Cyrus, bishop of Phasis in the Caucasus, to the arch- 
bishopric of Alexandria, his act was nevertheless 
a blunder, and that of the most tragic kind. The 
whole Christian world had been strangely drawn 
together as they watched with breathless interest the 
amazing developments of Heraclius crusade against 
Persia. When the infidels were vanquished, when 
Jerusalem was delivered, and when the Cross was 
exalted, Copts and Melkites alike had gloried in a 
common triumph ; they rejoiced together also in the 

six years after Benjamin's election.' That would bring us to the 
end of 628: but I think it impossible to accept this statement, as 
everything points to the withdrawal of the main Persian army early 
in 627. 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 175 

vengeance wrought upon the Jews, and shared aHke 
the penance enjoined in expiation of the sin. It was 
therefore the golden moment — the tide which taken 
at the flood might have led to a real and lasting 
union. This Heraclius saw : he knew too the blind 
devotion of the age to shibboleths and phrases : but 
he refused to see that his magic compromise of 
doctrine might fail to charm the Church in Egypt, 
or that, if it failed, the very worst way to bring about 
union was to thrust his message by sheer force down 
the gorge of those to whom its first savour was 
bitter. This, however, was the alternative which 
was offered in Egypt as in Syria. It was part of the 
philosophy of that age that religious belief could be 
and should be moulded by state decrees. In this 
the Emperor was not ahead of his time, and he 
resolved that by fair means or by foul the formula 
of his three Archbishops should be made to prevail 
against all other forms of belief with which it con- 
flicted. 

Still, even under that resolve, he courted disaster 
in making choice of Cyrus. For this was the evil 
genius who not only wrecked the Emperor's hopes 
of religious union in Egypt, but who after making 
himself a name of terror and loathing to the Copts 
for ten years, after stamping out to the best of his 
power the Coptic belief by persecution, made Coptic 
allegiance to Roman rule impossible ; the tyrant who 
misgoverned the country into hatred of the Empire, 
and so prepared the way for the Arab conquest ; and 
the traitor who at the critical moment delivered it 
over by surrender to the enemy. This was the man 
of evil fame, known afterwards in Egyptian history 
as Al Mukaukas; — that mysterious ruler the riddle 
of whose name and nation have hitherto confused 



176 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

and baffled historians, but whose identity with Cyrus 
is now absolutely certain ^. 

Benjamin seems never to have been consulted 
upon the feelings of the Copts and the prospects of 
the experiment in Egypt. It was a fatal omission; 
for from its very birth the Emperor's plan, so far as 
Egypt was concerned, was doomed to failure. The 
landing of Cyrus in Alexandria, which took place in 
the autumn of 631, was the signal for the flight of 
the Coptic Patriarch ^. Legend avers that Benjamin 
was warned by an angel in a dream to fly from the 
wrath to come ; and the story proves at least that 
whether he knew or did not know the precise nature 
of the overtures which Cyrus was bringing, he 
resolved in advance to reject them, and that he 
foresaw the consequences. The coming of Cyrus 
was in fact taken as a declaration of war against the 
Coptic faith. Ere leaving his post, Benjamin set the 
Church in order, and called an assembly of priests 
and laymen, at which he delivered an address 
* charging them to hold fast the faith till death.' He 
also wrote an encyclical to all his bishops, bidding 
them flee into the mountains and the deserts and 

^ For the proof of this statement I must refer the reader to my 
essay on the subject in the Appendix. 

^ In Prof. Bury's Later Roman Empire (vol. ii. p. 215, n. i), it 
is strangely stated that Benjamin fled from before the Persians, and 
hence it is inferred that * the Monophysites were not unanimously 
in favour of Persian rule! The statement is as erroneous as 
the inference. Benjamin fled some three or four years after the 
evacuation of Egypt by the Persians at the end of their long occu- 
pation : see Chronicon Orientate] Renaudot, Hist. Pat. Alex., 1. c; 
Abu Salih, p. 230, n. 2 ; and Makin, pp. 30 and' 40, whicl^ make 
it quite clear that Benjamin's flight took place ten years before the 
death of Heraclius. As regards Prof. Bury's inference, see ante, 
pp. 81-9, where the idea of sympathy between Copts and Persians 
is proved to be mythical. 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 177 

hide themselves till the anger of the Lord was 
overpast; for grievous troubles were coming upon 
the land, and for the space of ten years they must 
suffer persecution ; then it would be over. 

Such was the tenourof the letter. When he had sent 
it, the Patriarch took his departure from Alexandria 
by stealth under cover of night with only two com- 
panions. Leaving the city by the western gate he 
passed on foot to the town of Mareotis, and thence 
to Al Muna^, an oasis city which lay at the inter- 
section of the ways from Alexandria to Wadl 'n 
Natrun and from Tarrdnah to Barca. It must have 
been at this time a town of great splendour ; for even 
centuries later the traveller roaming across wastes 
of sand was amazed at the magnificent churches and 
buildings which broke upon his view 2. Here the 

* This is the form which Severus gives, but Quatremere seems 
to think the whole town was called Mina, from the saint who gave 
his name to the great church there (Mem. Giog. et Hist. vol. i. 
p. 488). In the Cairo MS. of Severus the word is quite clearly- 
written j-jlI (muna), not Ll*.<o (mina). 

'^ There is at Paris the MS. of an unknown Arab geographer 
(quoted by Quatremere, 1. c.) which gives some curious details of 
Al Muna or Mtna worth citing : ' Leaving Tarranah and following 
the road towards Barca, one comes to Mina, which consists of 
three abandoned towns in the midst of a sandy desert with their 
buildings still standing. The Arabs use it as a place for lying in 
wait against travellers. There may be seen lofty and well-built 
palaces with enclosure walls about them : they are mostly built 
over vaulted colonnades, and some few serve as dwellings for 
monks. There are some springs of fresh water, but somewhat 
scanty. Next one comes to the church of St. Mina, a huge 
building embellished with statues and paintings of the greatest 
beauty. There tapers burn day and night without ceasing. At 
one end of the building is a vast tomb with two camels in marble, 
and upon them the statue of a man carved in marble, who is stand- 
ing, one foot upon each camel : one of his hands is open, the otlier 
closed. This figure is said to represent St. Mina. On the right 

BUTLER J^ 



178 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Patriarch doubtless worshipped at the great church 
of St. Menas, and after a short rest pushed on to the 
mountain called Barnuj ^ He was now close to the 
Natrun monasteries, but he found them nearly- 
deserted : they had never recovered from the ravages 
which they had suffered some thirty years before ^ 
and the Beduin refused to allow any large resettle- 
ment or rebuilding of the churches. Here then was 

as you enter the church is a great marble column, in which a shrine 
is carved containing figures of Jesus, John, and Zacharias ; the door 
of the shrine is kept closed. There is also to be seen a figure of 
the Virgin Mary covered by two curtains, and figures of all the 
prophets. Outside the church are figures representing all kinds of 
animals and men of all occupations. Among the rest is a slave- 
merchant holding in his hand an open purse. Over the midst of 
the church rises a dome, beneath which are eight figures said to 
represent angels. Close to the church is a mosque where the 
Muslims pray, and all the land round about is planted with fruit- 
trees and vines. . . . The town of Fustat sends every year looo 
dinars for the maintenance of this church.' 

Quatrembre has in nearly all cases where I have used the word 
' figure ' given ' statue.' Graven images, however, always were and 
are still most strictly forbidden, and I feel certain that paintings 
are intended, at least in all those cases where saints or angels are 
mentioned. The colossal statue set upon the two camels is not to 
be explained away : it was probably, like the palaces and colonnades, 
a relic of Greek civilization, though the later Copts may have 
strangely identified it with St. Menas. But the whole account of 
this town is singularly interesting. Its position is now unknown, 
but it probably lay north-west of the Natrun Lakes and nearly due 
south of Mariiit (which latter place is still marked by ruins), and it 
would thus be on what was called the ' Route of the Pilgrims * 
from North Africa. 

^ Am^lineau, Geog. Copie^ pp. 319-21. The author cites the 
Paris MS. Arab. 139, fol. 97, for the arrival of Benjamin at this 
place. 

* In the time of the Patriarch Damianus. The monasteries 
were reinstated after the Arab conquest, and the church of St» 
Macarius was consecrated with great ceremony by Benjamin him- 
self, as Severus records. 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 179 

no place for the Patriarch ; he was still too near 
the capital to feel secure, too remote from his 
people to help them. He therefore passed on towards 
the Pyramids, and by the edge of the desert, to Upper 
Egypt, till he reached the town of Kiis ^ ; and not far 
from Ktas he took shelter in a little monastery in the 
desert, which for centuries later remained famous as 
his place of refuge. 

This flight of Benjamin practically coincided with 
the arrival of Cyrus in Alexandria, and there is not 
a word in any record to suggest that Cyrus made 
the slightest effort to come to an understanding with 
the Coptic Patriarch. His very presence seems to 
have scattered the Coptic clergy in terror. En- 
throned as imperial Patriarch of Alexandria, he was 
also armed with the civil power as Viceroy of Egypt ^. 
It was doubtless this union of the two highest offices 
which made Benjamin's position untenable ; it cer- 
tainly clothed Cyrus with almost despotic authority. 
Professing, however, to have come on a mission of 
peace, Cyrus expounded the ingenious Monothelite 
formula, by which the Emperor hoped to heal the 
breach of Chalcedon. He had to win over both 
the Melkite and the Coptic communion; but from the 
first the proposed compromise seems to have been 
ill stated, ill understood, and ill received. To many 
of the Melkites it seemed sheer surrender of Chalce- 
don ; while such of the Copts as heard the proposal 

^ On Kfts see Quatremere {Mem. Geog. et Hist. t. i. pp. 192- 
216), where an interesting note explains the position of the town, 
and also recounts some curious stories of magic and serpent- 
charming in connexion with it. AbQ Salih mentions (p. 230) 
without naming the monastery in which Benjamin took refuge. 

^ The evidence for this union in Cyrus of civil and ecclesiastical 
power is partly given in the Appendix : there is no room for any 
doubt on the subject. 

N 2 



i8o The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

urged also that by admitting one will and one opera- 
tion the doctrine admitted one nature — that in fact 
Cyrus had come over to the Monophysites. 

To remove these misunderstandings, Cyrus held 
a formal synod or council at Alexandria, at which 
the matter was set forth for discussion and debate. 
It was here that our friend Sophronius, who was 
again in Egypt, led the Melkite opposition, and 
strove by the most earnest entreaty as well as the 
strongest argument to turn Cyrus aside from his 
purpose. Cyrus is said to have replied kindly^, 
and to have referred Sophronius to the Primate 
Sergius at Constantinople for the settlement of his 
scruples : but he was quite unshaken, and the result 
of the council was to confirm the compromise and 
to smite with nine anathemas those who rejected 
it. In all this Cyrus seems to have shown very 
little of that tact and sympathy which were essential 
in the bearer of the Emperor's Eirenicon. He met 
resistance by sheer force of will and weight of 
authority, whereas only the most delicate adroitness 
could hope to deal successfully with the thorny 
problems of the Church in Egypt. Blame, however, 
may lie on both sides. If Cyrus was overbearing, 
the Copts might be held blind and intractable, if it 
were clear that the terms of the offer were ever fairly 
put before them. To the common lay intelligence 
there would seem to be little remaining difference 

^ The note by Dr. Murdock on Mosheim (eleventh edition, p. 256, 
n. i) makes out that Sophronius was very humble, falling down and 
entreating Cyrus not to press matters, and that Cyrus was very 
conciliatory. I somewhat doubt this. Sophronius showed more 
passion than humility in his demeanour. * With a loud and bitter 
cry he burst into tears and flung himself at Cyrus' feet imploring 
and beseeching him not to proclaim ' the nine heads of anathema : 
but Cyrus disregarded the appeal. See Mansi, t. x. col. 691. 



Perseattion of the Copts by Cyrus i8i 

between Monophysite and Monothellte : and though 
it is right to remember that even now divisions 
between Christians are often equally bitter and 
equally baseless, yet it would be true that in scorn- 
ing this offer of union the Coptic Church made a 
mistake which cost it untold suffering. 

Others may hold that the compromise was un- 
sound and impossible. But whatever judgement may 
be passed on the proposal made by the Emperor 
Heraclius and the three Eastern Patriarchs, and in 
whatever form it reached the Copts, rightly or 
wrongly they received it with the deepest hostility : 
they resented the thought of changing one iota in 
their shibboleth as treason to their faith and to their 
religious independence. It was this last point in 
which their passion centred. National independence 
they had never known, and such an ideal can scarcely 
have entered into their dreams ; but for religious 
independence they had struggled and fought inces- 
santly ever since the Council of Chalcedon. That 
ideal they cherished at all times in their hearts, and 
for it they were prepared to sacrifice all else what- 
soever. In this lies the key to all their history. 

When Cyrus found that neither cajolery nor male- 
diction availed to win over the Copts, he used 
stronger measures, to which it cannot be denied that 
Heraclius was a party. But the Emperor at a later 
period made one more effort for union. As the 
doctrine of one will and one operation was rejected, 
Sergius suggested that while one will alone should 
be recognized, the question whether its operation were 
single or twofold should be waived and discussion 
forbidden : and he secured the assent of the Roman 
Pope Honorius to this solution, or rather evasion, 
of the problem. It was embodied in a formal edict 



i82 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

or Ecthesis, and issued to the Eastern world as 
a binding ordinance. John, general of militia, was 
charged by Sergius to take a copy to Cyrus, and 
with it he took a rood or cross of great sanctity as 
a present^. But the effect of the famous Ecthesis 
was only to rouse further opposition. The Emperor, 
who had thought either to muzzle or to convert 
Sophronius by raising him to the see of Jerusalem, 
discovered in him an unrelenting foe to his policy ^ : 
while to the Copts the later edition of the new 
doctrine had, if anything, an even worse savour than 
the earlier. 

It is, however, extremely doubtful whether the 
Ecthesis, or even the original Eirenicon, ever reached 
the Copts beyond the gates of Alexandria. For 
perhaps the most melancholy and pathetic feature 
of the whole story is this — that Coptic annals betray 
no gleam of consciousness that any Eirenicon was 
ever offered at all. All through the Great Perse- 
cution it is the doctrine of Chalcedon pure and 
simple — ' the tome of Leo ' — that is offered, with 
stripes or death as the alternative; and this is the 
conviction burnt into the mind of all Coptic historians 
and graven in all their records. It would seem 
therefore as if Cyrus, conscious at once of the 
failure of his mission, and resolved at all costs to 
drive the Copts within the pale of the established 

^ The Ecthesis is given in Harduin's Concilia^ t. iii. p. 791. 
See also Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. p. 256 (eleventh edition). Cyrus' 
effusive acknowledgement of its receipt is given by Drapeyron 
(p. 389)5 who mentions the bearer. The cross is mentioned by 
John of Nikiou (p. 574). It may have held a portion of the 
so-called ' true cross.' 

^ Cedrenus in speaking of Sophronius* death says that the 
Patriarch died after having made great war against Heraclius and 
Sergius and the Monothelites. 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 183 

Church, troubled little thereafter about the refine- 
ments of the Emperor's theology, and merely set 
out the plain alternatives — union or persecution. \ 

For the whole country was now at the mercy of 
Cyrus, the Mukaukas. Not merely did the shining 
streets of Alexandria ring again to the tramp of 
kgions from Byzantium, while its long line of walls 
and its towers were once more held by Roman 
guards and mounted with Roman engines of war : 
but Pelusium, commanding the route from Palestine 
to Egypt ; the chief towns of the Delta, like Athrib 
and Nikiou ; and the great fortress of Babylon near 
Memphis, were garrisoned in the same manner. 
Thence the network of Roman dominion was woven 
again over the Fayiim and the valley of the Nile 
south w^ard to the frontier town of Syene below the 
cataract. All the Roman forces were at the call of 
Cyrus to do his bidding. Against the reoccupation 
the Copts were of course quite passive ; but little 
cause as they had to love the Persians, they soon 
found that their new rulers would leave them small 
reason to rejoice in the change. Chastisement with 
whips was to be followed by chastisement with 
scorpions. For under the Persians, as soon as the 
conquerors had established a settled government, 
the Copts had at least been allowed to practise their 
own form of religion : and this was the precious 
privilege which Cyrus, the Mukaukas, resolved to 
wrest from them. 

So the Great Persecution began. All the au- 
thorities are agreed that it lasted for a period of ten 
years, in other words that it virtually coincided with 
the term of Cyrus' patriarchate. The synod at 
Alexandria probably was held in October, 631, and 
the persecution commenced a month or two later. 



184 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Of its fierceness there can be no question. ' These 
were the years/ says Severus, ' during which Hera- 
clius and Al Mukaukas were ruling over Egypt : 
and through the severity of the persecution and the 
oppression and the chastisements which Heraclius 
inflicted on the orthodox, in order to force them to 
adopt the faith of Chalcedon, an innumerable multi- 
tude were led astray — some by tortures, some by 
promise of honours, some by persuasion and guile/ 
The biography of the Coptic Patriarch Isaac \ which 
was written about 695, represents Isaac in his young 
days as meeting with a priest named Joseph, who 
had been haled before the tribunal of Cyrus, and 
had been beaten with many stripes for his confession 
of the faith. Benjamin's own brother, Menas, was 
tortured and drowned. First of all lighted torches 
were held against him and he was burnt ' till the 
fat dropped down from both his sides on the ground 2' : 
then as he still was unshaken in his confession, his 
teeth were pulled out : next he was placed in a sack 
filled with sand, and taken out to a distance of 
seven bowshots from the shore. Three times he 
was offered his life, if he would acknowledge the 
Council of Chalcedon : three times he refused : and 
then he was sunk in the sea. ' Yet it was not they 
who were victorious over Menas, that champion of 
the faith, but Menas who by Christian patience 
overcame them,' says the biographer of Benjamin. 

^ Hisioire du Patriarche Copte Isaac (p. 12), by E. Am^lineau, 
Amdlineau's translation does not quite bring out the force of the 
pluperfect, as Mr. Crum tells me. The tense is important for the 
chronology : for when the meeting took place, the confession before 
Cyrus was clearly a thing of the past. Isaac died in 693, as I show 
in Appendix F. 

2 This account is from Severus (Brit. Mus. MS., p. 104, 1. 10). 
The Cairo MS. agrees. 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 185 

Another document — the life of Samuel of Kala- 
mun ^ — the original of which was certainly con- 
temporary with Cyrus, shows so clearly the part 
which Cyrus himself took in the persecution, that 
one may be pardoned for quoting it at some length. 
The story tells how the Archbishop on coming to 
the monastery found it deserted except for the 
steward, who was scourged and questioned. The 
steward then said, 'Samuel the ascetic held much 
discourse with the monks, calling you a blasphemer, 
a Chalcedonian Jew, an atheist, a man unworthy to 
celebrate the liturgy, unworthy of all communion : 
and the monks hearing this fled before your visit.' 
At these words the impious blasphemer fell into 
a furious passion, and biting his lips he cursed the 
steward, the monastery, and the monks, and de- 
parted another way, 'nor has he returned to this 
day,' adds the chronicle ^, Then the brethren came 

^ Published by Am^lineau in Mon. pour servir a THistoire de 
V^gypte Chretienne aux IV^-VIP siecles (Mem. Miss, Arch. 
Frang. au CairCy t. iv. 2, pp. 774 seq.). As to the date, see 
next note. 

^ This saying proves the original MS. to have been written 
before the death of Cyrus in 642. Samuel died at Kalamiin after 
foretelling the Muslim invasion and the final victory of the Christians 
{Journal A smtique^ 1888, p. 384): from which we may infer that 
his life was written at the beginning of the invasion and before 
the success of the Arabs was manifest — in other words early in 
the year 640. These biographies were written to be delivered 
as panegyrics directly after the death of a great saint or church- 
man : so that we may conclude that Samuel died in 639. Pereira 
points out that Samuel is said to have met at Kalamun a certain 
Gregory, bishop of Kais ; that Severus records a meeting between 
Gregory, bishop of Kais, and the Patriarch John of Samanud 
(680-9); and that when the Patriarch Isaac, after his election 
had been confirmed by 'Abd al 'Aziz, entered Alexandria in 685, 
he was attended by a Gregory, bishop of Kais. This last date 
should be 690, not 685 : but the correction only strengthens 



i86 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

back In peace to the convent. But as for the Kau- 
khios (Mukaukas), the Pseud- Archbishop, he came 
to the city of Piom (Fayum), cherishing wrath in his 
heart. There he summoned his minions and ordered 
them to bring the holy Abba Samuel, his hands 
tied behind his back and an iron collar about his 
neck — pushing him on like a thief. So they came 
to the convent where he abode and took him. 

Samuel went rejoicing in the Lord and saying, 
' Please God, it will be given me this day to shed 
my blood for the name of Christ* Therefore he 
reviled the name of the Mukaukas with boldness, 
and was led before him by the soldiers. When the 
Mukaukas saw the man of God, he ordered the 
soldiers to smite him, till his blood ran like water. 
Then he said to him, * Samuel, you wicked ascetic, 
who is he that made you abbot of the monastery, 
and bade you teach the monks to curse me and my 
faith ? ' Holy Abba Samuel answered, * It is good 
to obey God and His holy Archbishop Benjamin 
rather than obey you and your devilish doctrine, 

son of Satan, Antichrist, Beguiler.' Cyrus bade 
the soldiers to smite him on the mouth, saying, 
* Your spirit is kindled, Samuel, because the monks 
glorify you as an ascetic : but I will teach you what 

Pereira's argument, which is that, if these three are one and the 
same Gregory, as the evidence seems to show, and if Samuel died in 
639, then we must believe that the episcopate of Gregory covered 
a period of upwards of fifty years. That is not impossible, of 
course; but rather than place the date of Samuel's death later, 

1 would prefer to suppose that, just as there were two towns called 
Kais, one on the north coast and one near Bahnasa, so there may 
well have been in that period two bishops called Gregory. See 
Quatremere, M^m. Hist, et Geog. t. i. pp. 141 and 337. Gregory, 
bishop of Kais, is named by Abfi Salih as the founder of a church 
at Hulwan (p. 156). 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 187 

it Is to speak evil of dignities, since you render me 
not the honour which is my due as Archbishop and 
my due as Controller of the Revenues of the land 
of Egypt.' Samuel replied, * Satan also was con- 
troller, having angels under him : but his pride and 
unbelief estranged him from the glory of God. So 
with you also, O Chalcedonian Deceiver, your faith 
is defiled and you are more accursed than the devil 
and his angels.' On hearing this, the Mukaukas was 
filled with fury against the saint, and signed to the 
soldiers to strike him dead. In a word the blas- 
phemer essayed to slay the saint, but the ruler of 
the city of Piom delivered him out of his hands. 
When Cyrus saw that Samuel had escaped, he 
ordered him to be driven away from the mountain 
Neklone^. 

The Ethiopic version of the life of Abba Samuel 
is of much the same tenour. It recounts the visit 
of one Maximianus at the head of 200 soldiers to 
Samuel's monastery in the desert and the presentation 

^ Neklone, the Arabic An Nakliin, lay near Al Kalamun, some 
two hours to the south-west of the city of Fayfim. The monastery 
called t^,A.jdi j:^ is described by Abft Salih, pp. 205-6, in close 
connexion with that of Al Kalamun. It is also described by 
Makrizi (id., ib., pp. 313-4), but seems to have long disappeared. 
See also Quatremere, Mem. Hist, et G/og. t. i. pp. 411, 473; and 
Am^lineau, G/og. Copte, p. 273, Journal Asiatique^ Nov. 1888, 
p. 398, and Pereira, Vida do Abba Samuel, pp. 36-40. Pereira 
is mistaken in placing Kalamiin at a distance of 15 miles or 29 
kilometres from Alexandria on the authority of Rosweyde {Vi'/ae 
Patrum, lib. x. c. 162). Either '115' must be read instead of 
* 15,* or the Kalamun referred to must be some other monastery 
and not that in the Fayfim. In the Bulletin de V InsHtut Frangais 
d Archeologie Orientale, t. i. p. 72, Dair Nakalun is described as 
being in the mountain east of Kilm Basha, and Dair al Kalamfin 
as lying at the foot of the mountain at the entrance of the Fayto 
and as possessing twelve churches. 



i88 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

to him of a document for his subscription to the faith 
of Chalcedon \ Samuel tore it in pieces and flung 
it out of the door of the church, exclaiming, 'We 
have no Archbishop but Benjamin : cursed be the blas- 
phemous document of the Roman Emperor ; cursed 
be the Council of Chalcedon, and all who believe 
therein/ Samuel was beaten and left for dead, but he 
recovered and made his way to Kalamtin, where the 
same defiance of Cyrus is recorded and its result 2. 

When these things were done in the desert, one 
may imagine the fate of the Copts in the Delta 
and the Nile valley. Stripes, torture, imprisonment 
and death were the portion of those who resisted 
Cyrus and refused to abandon their belief. Melkite 
bishops were appointed to every city in Egypt up 
to Ansini^ while the Coptic clergy were put to 
death or scattered abroad in various hiding-places. 
The search after Benjamin was keen and unrelent- 
ing; but he was never discovered. Sever us says 
that he moved about from one fortified convent 
to another, while the life of Shanudah^ seems to 

^ Pereira, op. cit., p. 142. 

2 Id., ib., p. 146. Cyrus is not named, but is called the Governor: 
he claims both authority as Archbishop and supreme civil power 
over Egypt : so that there can be no question of his identity. 
I may note that in the Coptic Synaxarium, where this incident 
is recorded, the words are, * When the news of Samuel's treatment 
to the tome of Leo came \.o Al Mukaukas, the Patriarch, he laid 
a snare till he caught him and smote him with heavy blows, saying, 
" Only confess that the Council of Chalcedon is orthodox, and go 
your way" ' (^Journal Asiatique^ Nov. 1888, p. 397). 

^ Ansina or Antinoe was at this time the capital of the Thebaid. 
It lay opposite Hermopolis Magna, some way north of Lycopolis or 
Siiit. It would seem therefore that Cyrus' power was not effectively 
exercised south of Siut. 

* The life is in Arabic and is published with a translation in the 
Mem. Miss. Arch. Frang. t. iv. i, p. 340. The passage concerning 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 189 

assign him a refuge in the great monastery of Anba 
Shantadah, better known as the White Monastery; 
and this story again differs from the tradition 
which places his retreat near Kus in the desert. 
Probably the White Monastery, in spite of the 
tremendous strength of its walls, was too near the 
Nile to shelter Benjamin for long, while in the 
mountains of the desert by Klis, with their endless 
caves and rock-cut churches, he could rest safe and 
unmolested. 

But of those who failed to escape, it is small 
wonder that a great multitude gave in their sub- 
mission to Cyrus. It was a reign of terror, and 
though the spirit of the Copts was unbroken, a whole 
population could not turn martyrs. Some of the 
bishops too went over to the enemy, such as Cyrus, 
bishop of Nikiou ^, and Victor, bishop of the Fayiim 

Cyrus and Benjamin is given in the form of a prophecy, and 
deserves to be quoted. * The Persians shall leave Egypt. Then 
shall arise the Liar' (jUjJl — the common name for Antichrist). 
* He shall go before the Roman Emperor, and after receiving from 
him the two headships, that of the civil government and that of 
the episcopal, he shall enter into Egypt and shall take possession 
of Egypt and its dependencies. He shall make moats and strong- 
holds and shall build the walls of towns in the desert, and he shall 
lay waste the East and the West. Then shall he fight against the 
pastor, the chief of the bishops at Alexandria, the Vicar of the 
Christians in the land of Egypt, who shall flee from him to the region 
of Timan, until he come to thy monastery, in sorrow and affliction. 
After he has come there, I will restore him and will set him again 
upon his throne.' 

For the White Monastery see my Ancient Coptic Churches^ vol. i. 
p. 351, and the admirable work of the late W. de Bock, Mat&iaux 
pour servir h V Archeologie de Vigypte Chrefienne, pp. 39 seq. It 
may be, however, that the convent of Shanudah referred to is that 
at Kus, mentioned by Abti Salih, though it is clearly distinguished 
by that writer from Benjamin's place of retreat. 

* The Brit. Mus. MS. of Severus gives Cyrus, Bishop of SiknuSj 



iQQ The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

— examples which must have been contagious. 
Many of the people, however, who were unable to 
fly to the deserts and unwilling to renounce their 
faith, contrived to maintain secret observances. 
Even in Alexandria itself, during all the ten years 
of the persecution, there remained a remnant of 
the Coptic communion, though bereft of ministers* 
There was, however, one priest, a native of Mareotis 
named Agatho, who daily risked his life in the 
cause. Disguising himself as a carpenter, he used 
to go about the city by day carrying a bag of tools 
on his back ; while at night he administered the rites 
of the Church to his Coptic brethren. It was this 
Agatho who subsequently became Benjamin s great 
friend and successor in the patriarchate. 

The monastery of Matra, called As Sukunlah, is 
recorded to have resisted Cyrus successfully. It 
was either in or near Alexandria, and the reason 
given for its remaining scatheless is that all the 
monks were pure-bred Egyptians, with no single 
foreigner among them^. 

Boundless as was the patience of the Egyptians, 
they seem to have made one effort to throw off the 
yoke of Cyrus. Exasperated by his lawless plunder 
of their precious vessels, as well as by the stripes 
and imprisonments they suffered, the sect of Gaianites 
assembled in the church at Dafashir near Mareotis, 
and formed a plot against the life of their oppressor. 
But a Roman officer named Eudocianus, brother of 
Domentianus and one of the most relentless enemies 
of the Copts, heard of the meeting and sent soldiers 
with instant orders to shoot down the conspirators. 

but the Cairo MS. gives Nikiou correctly, Makrtzf for Cyrus reads 
Butrus or Peter. 

^ Severus, Brit. Mus. MS., p. 107, 1. 11. 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 191 

Some were killed outright, others wounded by the 
arrows, and others again had their hands cut off 
without the semblance of trial. So the conspiracy- 
was crushed, and Cyrus was delivered from danger \ 
These various anecdotes show in the clearest light 
the severity of the persecution. It may seem 
incredible that it could have lasted for ten years, 
yet nothing is more certain. * Even after the death 
of HeracHus,' says John of Nikiou, 'when Cyrus 
came back to Egypt' (i.e. in 641 after his exile or 
absence), ' far from abandoning his rage against the 
flock of God or ceasing to persecute it, he added 
violence to violence.' And similar language is used 
by Severus : ' Heraclius was like a ravening wolf, 
devouring the flock and yet never satiated, and that 
flock was the blessed community of the Theodosians^.' 
But as usual persecution strengthened, in those who 
were strong enough to resist it, the form of belief 
it was meant to crush. The Coptic Church was 
smitten and torn asunder, but it never yielded. The 
great majority of the people stood fast and staunch 
in their faith. But the iron had entered into their 
soul. Through the sullen gloom of those ten years 
the canker worked in their wounds ; and with the 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 566. Zotenberg justly remarks that the 
paragraph recording this incident is out of order. The incident is 
clearly prior to the Muslim invasion. On Dafashir see Am^lineau, 
Geog, Copie, p. 122. The place has been mentioned above (p. 25) 
in connexion with the revolt of Nicetas. 

^ This passage is curious as proving that in Severus' days the 
Copts still called themselves Theodosians — that in fact * Copt * and 
* Theodosian ' were synonymous. The Gaianites must have been 
a very small body in the time of Cyrus : see p. 29 n. Yet Prof. Bury, 
speaking of Cyrus' appointment, says that ' his first act was to 
win over the important sect of the Theodosians or Phthartolatrai ' 
(Later Roman Empire^ vol. ii. p. 251). 



192 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

final embitterment of their hatred for the Byzantine 
Church and Byzantine -government all hope of peace 
and reconcilement passed away for ever. 

In this frame of mind, what did the Egyptians 
feel with regard to that great movement which had 
sprung from Arabia and was already shaking the 
cities of Syria ? To their honour, be it said, that 
there is not the slightest reason to think that they 
looked upon it with sympathy: yet when they heard 
that even the Muslims granted a measure of toleration 
to the Christians, the thought may have risen in their 
hearts that subjection to the Muslims would make 
life less unbearable, that the yoke of Mohammed 
would be lighter than the yoke of the most Christian 
Emperor Heraclius. That they abhorred the re- 
ligion of Islam is proved by every page of their 
history : but during those ten years of hopeless 
misery the sword of Cyrus had cut through wellnigh 
the last thread which bound their allegiance to the 
Roman Empire ; and they regarded the advent of 
the Muslims as a plague sent by divine vengeance 
upon their persecutors. 

To such a pass had misgovernment brought the 
finest province in the Emperor's dominions. How 
far in all this evil work the Mukaukas had obeyed, 
how far he had betrayed, the orders of his master, is 
hard to discover. It is clear that the original plan 
of Heraclius was shaped by a noble purpose. It 
was a grand ideal to give that peace and rest to the 
Church which he had given to the State : but he 
failed to realize the tenacious strength of religious 
opinion — that it beat through the remotest nerves 
and fibres of the body politic, and that to remove it 
by violence would be fatal. His choice of instru- 
ments, too, was most unhappy. His peace-maker in 



Persecution of the Copts by Cyrus 193 

Egypt changed at once into a tyrant, and his 
message of peace was either never delivered or never 
heard. That he sanctioned the persecution can 
hardly be doubted, though it may be questioned 
whether he sanctioned it save as a last resort ; 
whereas with Cyrus it was the first and only resort. 
It was in any case the scheme of a visionary to root 
out sectarian hatred by an edict. The Emperor had 
hoped by his magic phrase to conjure to rest the 
angry billows of religious controversy : but then, 
when he found that he had only raised a furious 
storm, unable to brook failure, untaught to trust in 
time and toleration, he condescended, both in Syria 
and in Egypt, to strive for the end of peace by the 
method of religious war. In both countries he thus 
opened the way for the advancing armies of Islam. 



CHAPTER XIV 
ARAB ADVANCE ON EGYPT 

'Amr ibn al *Asl unfolds to the Caliph his design for conquering 
Egypt. Omar's hesitation in giving leave. Letters of recall sent 
and opened at 'Arish. The Day of Sacrifice there celebrated. 
Character of the Arab leader. Stature and physique. Story of 
his stammering refuted. His history. Conversion to Islam and 
appointment by Mohammed as captain. Various anecdotes illus- 
trating his qualities. 

After the surrender of Jerusalem by the aged 
Patriarch Sophronius, it seems that both the Caliph 
Omar and his general *Amr ibn al 'Asl turned their 
steps northward. *Amr at least was sent to take 
part in the siege of Caesarea ^, while Ornar fixed 
his head quarters at Damascus. It was probably 
at Jerusalem that 'Amr unfolded his plan for the 
invasion of Egypt : but the time was not then 
judged propitious. When, however, fortune still 
shone on the Muslim arms, and the Syrian campaign 
was more nearly over, 'Amr renewed his proposal to 
Omar, pointing out the ease with which Egypt could 
be conquered and the vastness of the prize. There 
was no country in the world, he said, at once so 
wealthy and so defenceless ^ He also reminded 

^ De Goeje, Conquete de la Syrie, p. 130. Ibn al Athtr and Ibn 
Khaldfin both say, 'When Omar had taken Jerusalem, 'Amr marched 
into Egypt ' ; but Baladhurt — an earlier and far better authority — 
makes 'Amr's expedition start from the siege of Caesarea. Bala- 
dhuri gives one account which represents 'Amr as acting without 
the knowledge of Omar, while he records also the contrary opinion 
that 'Amr acted under the Caliph's orders. Makrizi too gives both 
versions. 

^ I have here followed Yakiit's Mujam al Bulddn (vol. iii. p. 
893). 



Arab Advance on Egypt 195 

Omar that Aretion, the Roman governor of Jerusa- 
lem, who had escaped before the capitulation and 
fled to Egypt, was there rallying the imperial forces, 
and that no more time should be lost in striking ^ : 
moreover, the possession of Egypt would greatly 
strengthen the power of the Muslims. This confer- 
ence between the two leaders took place at Al 
Jabiah 2, near Damascus, in the autumn of the year 
639 A.D., while the siege of Caesarea was still 
proceeding. 

Omar saw that the conquest of Egypt was 
desirable, but thought that *Amr underrated the 
difficulties of it, since he was unable to weaken the 
forces in Syria by detaching an army strong enough 
for the purpose. When *Amr offered to start with 
a force of 3,500 or 4,000 men, the Commander of the 
Faithful in wavering mood could only promise to 
.think it over ; and *Amr returned to Caesarea, where 
Constantine, son of Heraclius, was now in command 
of the city. There, however, a letter from Omar 
followed him, borne by Sharikh ibn *Ahdab. It 
sanctioned the plan for the invasion of Egypt, but 
ordered *Amr to keep it secret and to lead his force 
southward by easy stages. * Amr accordingly departed 
at dead of night, and marched his little army of 
horsemen without incident towards the borderland 
of Palestine and Egypt, He had already reached 
Rafah 2, one stage from the Egyptian Al 'Arish, 

^ Tabart, ed. Zotenberg, vol. iii. p. 411. 

^ Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, quoted by Makrizi. This seems more 
probable than Eutychius* statement that Omar had returned to 
Medina and wrote the order for *Amr to advance on Egypt from 
that city. 

^ On these places see the notes in Hamaker's edition of 
Wakidi, p. 15; Quatremere, Me7n. Geog. ei Hist. t. i. p. 53; 

02 



196 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

when messengers spurred in hot haste into his camp 
bearing dispatches from the Caliph. 

'Amr shrewdly guessed their tenour. Omar's 
doubts and hesitations had prevailed, and led him 
to repent his decision. The Caliph had spoken to 
Othman about the perils of the enterprise, and 
Othman not only thought the hazard very great, but 
reminded Omar that the rash and adventurous 
character of *Amr was certain to hurry him into 
disaster. Omar therefore was seriously disquieted, 
and resolved if possible to recall the expedition : 
but he felt that if 'Amr's force were already in 
Egypt, it would be a confession of weakness and 
a dishonour to the Muslim name to retreat before 
the enemy. The dispatch accordingly ordered *Amr 
to return, if he was still in Palestine, while if 
he were in Egypt, he must go forward. In that 
case Omar would pray for his victory, and would 
send reinforcements \ But 'Amr had put his hand 

Champollion, H^gypte sous les Pharaons, t. ii. p. 304 ; Amdlineau, 
Geog. Copie, p. 404 ; A\A Salih, p. 70. The Arabic text of 
Wakidi says that 'Amr ' left the desert and those fortresses which 
were upon the way to Egypt on his right hand, viz. Rafah, Al 'Arish, 
Al 'Adad, Al Bakarah and Al Farama ' (p. 8). But the statement 
is not very probable in itself, nor borne out by other authorities. 
Ibn al Athir indeed makes *Amr send back from Heliopolis one of 
his commanders to besiege Farama and another to besiege 
Alexandria : but his account of the conquest is a mass of mis- 
statement and confusion. 

^ This seems the natural version of an incident which some of 
the Arab historians have twisted into absurdity : I have chosen it 
from among the versions given by Makrizt. Ibn 'Abd al Hakam 
and those who follow him represent Omar as giving his consent to 
*Amr for the expedition and adding, * I will shortly send a letter 
after you, and if it bids you return, you must do so, unless you have 
already crossed the frontier. In that case, go on and prosper.' It 
is hard to imagine a more fatuous proceeding : but Omar is not 



Arab Advance on Egypt 197 

to the plough, and was not the man to turn back. 
He knew that the letter boded no good to his 
project, and he refused to receive it until he had 
crossed the torrent-bed, which perhaps marked the 
frontier, and reached the little valley of *Arish. 
There he read it, and asked ' Is this place in Syria 
or in Egypt ?' and when the answer was ' In Egypt,' 
he read the dispatch aloud before his officers and 
said, ' The army will advance in accordance with the 
Caliph's orders.' 

*Amr no doubt got the answer he wanted, but it 
is curious to remark that, although 'Arlsh or Rhino- 
colura was generally regarded as within the Egyptian 
frontier, the matter was not free from doubt ^. It is 
clear, however, that the town, although fortified, was 
not held by a Roman garrison. Yet even as late as 
the thirteenth century might be seen the ruins of two 
splendid ancient churches and the remains of the city 
wall along the sea-front, while the finest marbles and 
the largest columns at that time found in Cairo were 
strangely said to have come from *Arish 2. From this 
point too, according to some authorities, started the 

rightly charged with such folly. The truth of course is that he 
gave reluctant leave for the expedition, that he repented of it, and 
that he sent to recall 'Amr, if it still could be done with honour. 
Eutychius gives three versions of the story which may be compared 
with those of Makrtzt. 

^ Quatrem^re,!. c, shows that the frontier was sometimes regarded 
as ending at Waridah, as he writes it. In the Kitdb al Bulddn, by 
Ya'kubi, c. 900 a. d. {Bibl. Geog, Arah.y ed. de Goeje, pt. viii. 
p. 330) the writer says : ' A traveller from Palestine to Egypt goes 
to Ash Shajaratan on the frontier of Egypt, then to Al 'Arish in the 
frontier district, then to the village of Al Bakkarah [sic), then to that 
of Al Warradah among the sand-hills, then to Al Farama — the first 
city of Egypt which he reaches : next to the village of Jurjir, then 
to that of Fakfts, then to that of Ghaifah, then to Fustat.' 

2 Ab^Salih, p. 167. 



198 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Great Wall of Egypt, which ran across to Kulzum 
or Suez, and thence up the eastern bank of the Nile 
as far as the First Cataract. This wall, attributed 
to Sesostrls, but called by the Arabs the ' Wall of 
the Old Woman,' had long been broken down, 
so that it offered no hindrance to the movement of 
an army even in the seventh century, though frag- 
ments of its ruins may be seen at Jabal at Tair and 
other places in Egypt to-day ^. 

It was on the 10 Dhti '1 Hijjah, a.h. 18 2, or 
12 December, 639 a.d., that *Amr s little force cele- 
brated the Muslim Day of Sacrifice, or Feast of 
Offerings, or Feast of Pilgrims, as it was variously 
called. The rite was not without solemnity for this 
band of desert warriors, who were setting out to 
conquer the land of the Pharaohs, leagued as they 
were by ties of clanship and devotion to the great 
chieftain who led them. Most of *Amr s following 
belonged to the tribe of *Akk, although Al Kindt 
says that one third were of the tribe of Ghafik ^, and 
Ibn Dukmik gives a list of Roman converts to 
Islam from Syria, who were in the Arab army. He 
also mentions Persian converts from the region of 
Yaman as taking part in the conquest, though 
these were 'more probably enrolled among the 
reinforcements which the Caliph sent later to 
Egypt*. 

^ hUcA Salih, p. 59, n. 4, where references are given to Diodonis, 
Eutychius, and some Arab writers. 

^ This date, given by Ibn *Abd al Hakam, fits in so well with 
other known dates that it may be taken as settled. But to avoid 
needless repetition on matters of date, I must refer the reader to 
the essay ' On the Chronology of the Arab Conquest ' at the end 
of this work. 

3 Ydkiit, 1. c. 

* Ibn Dukmak, part iv. pp. 4-5. These Persians are described 



Arab Advance on Egypt 199 

And what of *Amr himself ? The chronicles give 
many of his sayings, and a good deal of information 
about his character ; and in a history of the conquest 
of Egypt it cannot be out of place to furnish some 
sketch of the conqueror. *Amr ibn al *Asl was 
somewhere about 45 years old at the time of the 
invasion of Egypt ^. Short in stature, though 
strongly built, his athletic and hardy frame excelled 
in those feats of horsemanship and swordsmanship 
which Western chivalry has learned to link with the 
name of Saracen I That he was broad-shouldered 
and broad-chested ; that he had dark piercing eyes, 
quickly kindling to anger or humour, heavy eyebrows, 
and a large mouth ; that his face, though powerful, 
was without sternness — wore indeed a pleasant and 
cheerful expression ; that he used a black cosmetic 
for dyeing his beard : these are almost all the details 
of his outer appearance which have come down in 
history. The statement that he stammered is pro- 
bably erroneous. It is true that Abu '1 Mahasin 
records this as 'Amr s one defect of body. On the 
other hand, it is known that *Amr was remarkable for 
the quickness and wit of his repartees, as well as for 
his sustained eloquence ; and the idea that he 
stammered seems founded on a misunderstanding. 

as the remnants of the army sent by Chosroes to Yaman under the 
general Badhan (or Horzad) : see ante, p. 142, n. 2. 

^ This seems the most probable account of the matter, as I have 
endeavoured to show in Appendix E against some writers who 
would make him much older. 

2 Ibn Kutaibah, Ibn Khallikan, and Abft 1 Mahasin are the 
authorities, the works of the two former being a sort of biographical 
dictionaries. Ibn Khallikan's account of *Amr has been translated 
by De Slane. Abii Salih (p. 78) adds one or two details to the 
description of *Amr, which seems to come originally from Ibn *Abd 
al Hakam. 



200 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

For It is related^ that Omar once hearing a man 
stammer remarked, * I declare that the maker of this 
man and the maker of *Amr are one ' ; which meant, 
not that *Amr was given to stammering, but that 
God made the speechless and the most eloquent 
alike : just as *Amr himself on one occasion, when 
provoked by a shallow fellow, smothered his scorn in 
the remark, * He too is God's creature/ But the 
story has been misconstrued by some Arab writers, 
and taken to prove that *Amr also stammered. Such 
a construction would make Omar's saying both rude 
and pointless, and it would seem to clash with the 
fact of 'Amr's eminence as well as that of his elo- 
quence. For it is hardly conceivable that, if *Amr 
had suffered from this defect, he would have been 
singled out from the beginning by Mohammed as 
a capable leader, or could ever have become a great 
commander. It may be added also that *Amr acted 
as imam, or leader of prayer, to the end of his days, 
and that Muslim law expressely forbids any one to 
take that office who stammers 2. The story there- 
fore that 'Amr had this defect is quite unworthy of 
belief. 

For the rest, there are many sayings and stories 
which illustrate his life and character. He was of 
the tribe of the Kuraish, and his genealogy is known 
to tradition 2. His conversion to Islam took place in 

^ This story comes from Ibn al Hajar, though doubtless copied 
by him from earlier writers. 

'^ Kharijah ibn Hudhafah was assassinated while acting as leader 
of prayer in place of *Amr, who was unwell ; see below, p. 493. 
For the Muslim law see Ma*wardi, Kitdb al Ahkdm as Sultantah^ 
ch. ix ; * On the Superintendence of Prayers,' pp. 171 seq. 

^ Ibn Kutaibah gives it as follows : Ibn al 'Ast, ibn Wa'il, ibn 
Hashim, ibn Sahm, ibn Husais, ibn Ka'b, ibn Lu'aig, ibn Ghalib, 
ibn Fihr, ibn Malih, ibn An Nadr, ibn Kinanah : and Abu '1 



Arab Advance on Egypt 201 

A. H. 7 or 8, and there are one or two anecdotes 
bearing upon it. He was once asked\ * What delayed 
your conversion so long, in spite of your intelli- 
gence ? ^ and he answered that he was overawed 
by the authority of his betters, but that as he grew 
older and more independent, reflection taught him 
to slacken in his opposition to the Prophet. When 
the Kuraish sent one of their number to question 
him, *Amr asked his questioner whether the Arabs 
held the true religion, or the Persians, or the Romans ? 
On being told * The Arabs,' he said * Are we or they 
the wealthier ? * ' They are.' ' Then,' he said, ' what 
advantage have we over Persians and Romans, if 
there is no life to come, since in this life they have 
all the advantage over us ? ' *Amr went on to say 
that he became convinced of the truth of Mohammed's 
doctrine of a resurrection and of rewards and punish- 
ments after death, and so he resolved to give up 
what was false in the old Arab religion. Some say 
that 'Amr was in Abyssinia at the time of his con- 
version, which was brought about by Ja*far ibn Abi 
Tdlib. 

Another story is that *Amr said to Mohammed, 
' O Apostle of God, I will acknowledge thee, if thou 
wilt forgive the sins of my past life,' and that 
Mohammed answered, 'Verily the profession of 
Islam and the sharing of the Flight ^ cancel all the 
past.' *Amr was so grateful for this free pardon that 
he could not take his eyes off the Prophet's face. 
Fore God,' he exclaimed, ' I could not take my fill 



( > 



Mahasin calls him further Abu 'Abdallah, al Kuraishi as Salimi 
as Sahabi. 

^ Ibn al Hajar. 

^ This cannot mean that 'Amr accompanied the Flight : if it does, 
the story is apocryphal. 



202 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

of gazing upon him, nor regard his countenance as 
long as I desired, without making him ashamed/ 

Mohammed's opinion of *Amr was a high one. He 
praised him as the best MusHm and the most trust- 
worthy of men ^ He called 'Amr * one of the good 
men of the Kuraish,' and highly esteemed him ' for 
his knowledge and valour.' *Amr had a half-brothei* 
named Hisham,who was slain at the battle of Yermouk. 
When questioned about him, *Amr said, ' Judge which 
was the better man. His mother was Umm Harmilah, 
aunt of Omar ibn al Khattab, while my mother was 
an *Anaziah. My father loved him more than me, 
and you know what a good eye a father has for his 
children. He became a Muslim before me, and has 
gone to God before me ; for he died a martyr's death 
at Yermouk, while I was left behind.' 

*Amr's great distinction is that he was made 
military commander direct by the Prophet. In 
appointing him Mohammed said, * I am sending you 
forth as commander of a troop. May God keep you 
safe and give you much booty.' When *Amr 
answered, ' I did not become a Muslim for the sake 
of wealth, but for the sake of submission to God,' 
the Prophet rejoined, ' Honest wealth is good for 
an honest man' — a maxim which 'Amr doubtless 
remembered. He was placed at the head of the 
force which fought the battle of As Salasil, or the 
Chains, but had to write for reinforcements. So 
Mohammed sent 200 more men, including Abii Bakr 
and Omar, under the orders of Abu 'Ubaidah ibn al 
Jarrih. As they came up, *Amr said quietly, * I am 
your leader and you are my helpers.' * No/ said 
Abu 'Ubaidah, * I am chief of my men, you of yours '; 

' 'Ukbah ibn 'A amir, quoted by Abii '1 Mahasin and An Nawawl 
in slightly different terms. 



Arab Advance on Egypt 203 

but when 'Amr declined this arrangement, he added, 
' The Apostle of God enjoined that there should be 
no dissension ; if therefore you refuse to obey me, I 
will obey you/ * I refuse,' said *Amr ; whereupon 
Abu *Ubaidah saluted *Amr, and he stood behind 
him at public prayer. 

After the battle of the Chains 'Amr was made 
governor of Uman, and there remained till the death 
of Mohammed; a year or two afterwards he was 
sent by Ahh. Bakr as one of the generals in the 
Syrian expedition. There his reputation both as 
a hard fighter and an able tactician was immensely 
strengthened, and he ill brooked the superior 
command which Omar on his accession gave to 
Abu *Ubaidah. But perhaps the most striking 
passage about the conqueror of Egypt is that which 
records a speech made by *Amr in self-defence, when 
Mu*awlah was charged with unduly favouring him ^ : 
' I am the man who at the battle of Siffin quoted 
the verse, 

*' When other eyes faltered, mine never quailed ; 
I half-closed my eyes to their failure, but not to 
danger." 

Remember, how again and again I returned to the 
charge. I bear good and evil fortune alike ; I am 
inexorable, like the serpent at the root of the tree. 
'Fore God, I am no sluggard or weakling. I am 
the deaf adder, from whose bite none may recover, 
whose sting renders a man sleepless. I am a man 
who shatters what he strikes, who turns to cinders 
what he kindles. At the battle of Harlrthe foemen 

^ Hisham ibn al Kalbi is the author from whom this is taken. 
Of course this incident belongs to a later period in *Amr's career — 
after the conquest of Egypt. 



204 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

knew me for the most dauntless of heart, the 
strongest of hand, the staunchest defender of the 
flag. To me in comparison with my traducer may- 
be applied the words of the poet, 

** If the tree of mine honour be made of gold, 
Shall I not esteem it of higher worth 
Than to be placed in competition with vile weeds?" ' 

Language like this seems to reveal the man in all 
his self-confidence and consciousness of power. In 
the dispute which followed the battle of Siffin, *Amr 
no doubt showed some unscrupulousness. Adh 
Dhahabi records how he clove through the false 
excuses and hypocrisy of Mu^awiah at the time of 
the battle, exclaiming, * O Mu*awiah, my heart has 
burnt with wrath while I have listened to your 
pretences. Do you think that we are rebelling 
against *Ali because our claims are more rightful 
than his ? No, Tore God ; it is only that we fly like 
dogs upon the riches of this world ; and by God, I 
swear that you shall give me a share in your wealth, 
or else I fight not upon your side.* In the matter of 
the arbitration his action reads like a breach of faith 
with Abu Mus^. The latter thereafter always 
mingled in his prayers curses against *Amr, and he 
insulted his enemy, saying, **Amrs likeness is the 
likeness of a dog ; if you drive him away, he puts 
forth his tongue ; and if you leave him alone, he puts 
forth his tongue ! ' * And you,' retorted *Amr, ' are the 
donkey laden with books, and none the wiser for 
them ! ' 

Ibn al Hajar records that one of his friends said 
of *Amr, * I have never met a man who understood 
the Kuran better, or had a nobler character, or was 
more honest and open in his dealings.' One named 



Arab Advance on Egypt 205 

Jabiz is quoted as saying, ' I never met a man more 
learned in the Book of God than Omar. When 
I was in Muawiah's company, I found none more 
gentle. When I was with 'Amr, I found a man of 
most intelligent conversation, a most excellent com- 
panion and counsellor.' One or two more brief 
anecdotes may be given, bringing out his good- 
heartedness, his candour of mind, and his love of 
musical measure. When he was reproached once 
for riding an old and ill-favoured mule, he replied, 
' I do not grow tired of a beast that has carried me 
well, nor of a wife who makes my life happy by her 
society, nor of a friend who keeps my secrets.' On 
another occasion he had a dispute with Al Mughlrah 
ibn Sha*bah, who lost his temper and used some 
strong language. 'Will ye insult me, ye family of 
Husais ? ' cried *Amr, blazing with fury. But *Amr s 
son *Abdallah was standing by, and when he called 
out ' Verily we belong to God ! you have uttered 
the war-cry of the tribes, which is forbidden,' the 
father accepted the son s rebuke and freed thirty 
slaves as an act of repentance. But it was in his 
younger days at Medina that, after listening to 
Ziyad's eloquent Khutbah, he exclaimed, * How 
marvellous a talent hath God granted to that youth ! 
Verily if he were a son of the tribe of the Kuraish, 
it were easy for him to drive the Arab nation before 
him with a switch ^' 

Such anecdotes might doubtless be multiplied. 
But enough has been said to show what manner 
of man *Amr was. Putting together some of his 
characteristics, one may note that he combined great 
power of brain and body with great enthusiasm : 

* This story is from 'Umarah's Yavian (ed. Kay), p. 219. That 
about the mule is from Abu '1 Mahasin. 



2o6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

he had an iron will and unfaltering courage, yet 
measured aright the advantage which coolness and 
skill possess over mere valour. In matters of 
religion and ceremonial he was devout, and, though 
fiercely swayed at times by worldly motives, yet in 
the main upright and high-principled. He was not 
unlearned, as the times went; indeed he was held 
to be the cleverest^ of the Arabs, and one of the 
most accomplished ; passionately fond of music and 
verse; gifted with imagination, a good talker. In 
*Amr there mingled something at once of soldier, 
saint, adventurer, and poet. Frank and open in his 
bearing, heroic in aim and action, he possessed 
great charm of presence and manner — that talisman 
which so often avails great men to transmute 
admiration into personal devotion. 

Such was the captain of the four thousand horse- 
men who were bent on wresting Egypt from the 
grasp of the Caesars. 

^ Makin, p. 39. See also references to 'Amr in W. Nassau Lees' 
Conquest of Syria in Bihliotheca Indi'ca, vol. i. 



CHAPTER XV 

OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN 

Action of Cyrus. Refutation of the story that the Arabs were 
bought off by payment of tribute. Siege and capture of Pelusium. 
Desert march to Bilbais. Capture of the town after much fighting. 
The Arabs arrive at Tendunias or Umm Dunain. Indecisive 
engagements. Dangerous condition of the Muslim force. 'Amr's 
resolve to invade the Fayiim. Capture of Tendunias. 

The alarm was now sounded through Egypt, and 
Cyrus, the Mukaukas, heard that the dreaded Saracens 
were coming. Some measures of defence he had 
taken already: a moat had been dug round the 
great castle of Babylon near Memphis, other forts 
had been strengthened, and the walls of many cities 
which had suffered in the Persian invasion were 
repaired \ But it is false to say that Cyrus now 
bought off the Arabs by a promise of tribute. That 
is the statement which Theophanes makes, or seems 
to make ^, But most unfortunately the Greek 
historians are quite in the dark both as to the facts 
and as to the order of events at this period. Nice- 
phorus ^ is even worse than Theophanes, and the 

^ This is clear from the language of the prophecy in the Vie de 
Shenoudi {M/m, Miss. Arch. Frang. t. iv. i. p. 340). 

^ Corp. Hist. Script. Byzant. t. 44, p. 167 : 'They march on 
Egypt. Cyrus, bishop of Alexandria, hearing of the attack bestirred 
himself, and under a convention promised, in fear of their avarice, 
that Egypt would pay 200,000 dinars yearly as tribute. ... So for 
three years he saved Egypt from ruin. Cyrus was then accused 
before the Emperor of paying Egyptian gold in tribute to the 
Arabs ' — and there follows an account of Cyrus' supersession by 
Manuel ! I shall further deal with this at the close of the book. 

^ He declares that ' while Heraclius was still in the East, he sent 
John, Duke of Barcaina, against the Saracens in Egypt,' and he 



2o8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

writer of the Chronicon Orientale worse than either ^ 
They neither examined nor understood what they re- 
corded, and their confusion of dates and perversion 
of truth are such that they have served only as false 
lights, luring into quagmires nearly every modern 
writer who has followed them 2. But it must suffice 

tells of some battles and some proposals for a treaty with 'Amr, who 
was to marry the Emperor's daughter and become a Christian ! 
And all this is said to have happened before Heraclius quitted 
Syria, i. e. before September, 636, when the invasion of Egypt had 
not been even thought of. 

^ It alleges that when the Muslims appeared, Heraclius withdrew 
all the Roman troops from Egypt up to Syene, and paid tribute for 
ten years to the Muslims until all his treasure was exhausted. It 
would be difficult to say what period of ten years is intended : but 
the statement probably refers to events in Syria. If it means that 
Heraclius paid tribute for Egypt, it can only be described as utterly 
unfounded. It is curious to find the Cairo MS. of Severus giving 
almost the same story in the same words, with this exception, that 
it makes the period eight years instead often. In the British Museum 
MS. the passage has become childish nonsense. But it is clear that 
the Coptic writer of the Chronicon Orientale had Severus before 
him. Severus must have borrowed from Greek sources this story 
of tribute, but he never troubled to reconcile it with his narrative 
of the Arab invasion and the persecution of Cyrus. This legend 
about tribute is quite unknown to the Muslim historians. 

^ Perhaps the best example of this misleading is seen in Lebeau 
{Histoire du Bas Empire), who from p. 272 in vol. xi becomes totally 
unreliable. He actually places the incidents connected with Manuel 
before the invasion of 'Amr. Drapeyron is equally deceived 
{I! Empereur Heraclius, p. 396) ; and so are the English historians 
from Gibbon to Bury. The latter follows Lebeau about Manuel 
{Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 269, n. 3). Mr. Milne also, in 
Egypt under Roman Rule (p. 115), alleges that the Arabs were at 
first bought off by subsidies, quoting Paulus Diaconus, xviii. 579. 
But Paul's authority is quite worthless. His story here is a mere 
transcript of Theophanes, who, as I have shown, is most inaccurate 
in all that concerns the Saracen conquest. What hitherto has 
passed for history on the subject of 'Amr's invasion may be seen 
summarized in an article in the Asiatic Quarterly Review by an 



opening of the Campaign 2.0^ 

here to say that there is not a word of truth in the 
story of tribute paid to stave off the conquest of 
Egypt. There is no whisper or hint of any such 
arrangement in any single Oriental writer — Persian, 
Arabic, Syriac, or Coptic — with the exception of the 
passage in Severus copied by the Chronicon Orientale, 
The idea is a mere blunder of the Greek historians, 
a distorted image of a totally different and much 
later transaction, as will be set forth in due orden 
It was needful at the outset to sweep aside this 
misconception ; but the way is now clear to follow 
*Amr on his march through the desert. 

From the valley of *Arish with its groves of palm 
the road passed nearly due westward, but away from 
the coast, through a waste of desert, relieved by 
occasional watering-places and villages. It was the 
immemorial high-road to Egypt — the road which 
had witnessed the passage of the first prehistoric 
settlers in Egypt, the passage of Abraham, of Jacob 
and Joseph, of Cambyses, Alexander, and Cleopatra^, 
of the Holy Family, and lately of the Persian 

Oriental writer of some ability, S. Khuda Bukhsh (July, 1901). He 
writes thus: *'Amr was not received as an enemy but hailed as 
a deliverer. The Patriarch Cyrus, in concert with Mukaukas (!), 
fondly hoped to stave off the horror of war by paying an annual 
tribute to the Saracens, but Heraclius rejected the proposal and 
sent Manuel to defend the province,' &c. There is hardly a word 
of truth in all this. The same must be said of Ockley's account of 
the Saracen conquest, which is probably responsible for most of the 
erroneous versions current in modern histories. To what strange 
developments these false views about Cyrus and false stories about 
tribute can lead in the hands of an imaginative writer is shown by 
Drapeyron, who makes Cyrus a *ruse Syrien,' who stopped the 
invasion at the Isthmus of Suez by a tribute of 200,000 gold pieces, 
part of which he raised on the credit of the Mukaufe:as ! {JJ Empereur 
Hira^Uus^ P- 396). 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 407. 

BUTLER P 



2IO The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

invaders. It was the road of merchants, travellers, 
and pilgrims at all times, and of the many caravans 
which here linked Asia to Africa. A few miles 
before reaching Pelusium the way trends north-west- 
wards, plunging among dunes or moving sandhills ; 
but no Roman soldiers were met by the Arabs till 
they came within sight of the city. 

Pelusium, the Coptic Peremoun and the Arabic 
Al Farama, seems to have stood on an eminence 
about a mile and a half from the sea ; it possessed 
a harbour, possibly connected with the town by 
a canal, and the Pelusiac arm of the Nile here 
joined the sea. The city was ancient and strongly 
fortified, full of old Egyptian monuments, as well 
as churches and monasteries ^ ; and as the key of 
Egypt on the eastern side, it was a place of 
the greatest importance, commanding the desert 
approaches, the coast, and a waterway leading into 
the Delta. Yet it seems to have been poorly 
defended. The Persians, who were practised in the 
art of siege warfare, had captured it with very little 
fighting, and they probably had made havoc with 
its walls, wrecking them in parts, as they wrecked 
the churches. Still the Romans had warning enough, 
and might easily have repaired the damage. 

But the Arabs under *Amr had no engineering 
skill or resources, and they had to capture the city 
by storm or starvation. We do not know the 

^ See Abu Salih, p. 167, and my note there. It may be added that 
the tomb of Galen, the physician, was shown at Pelusium according 
to Istakhri {Bibl, Geog. Arab., ed. de Goeje, pt, i. p. 53). At 
present the site of Pelusium is marked by red mounds which may 
be seen in the distance from the Suez Canal. There are some 
remains of buildings said to be Roman, but it is greatly to be 
hoped that the site may be explored scientifically. 



J 



Map Z. 




MaJ-»isA,J-f & Sfrmyarc/ Ltd. 



opening of the Campaign 211 

numbers of the garrison : but it is clear that the 
Saracen force was too weak to beleaguer the place, 
and there were frequent sallies. Desultory fighting 
lasted a month — or two months according to one 
authority^ — till at last one of the gates was seized 
in the repulse of a sally, and the city was taken. 
The first Arab to force his way through the gate 
was called Asmaika* ibn Wa1ah as Sabai' 2. Makrtzt 
and Abu '1 Mahdsin (who copied from him) mention 
a report that the Copts aided the Arabs at the siege, 
but it is certainly baseless. It seems a mere revival 
of the old falsehood which charged the Copts with 
aiding the Persians. It occurs, I believe, in no 
writer before the fourteenth century, and it seems 
refuted by the story of the capture which I have 
given. It is also inconsistent with the fact that the 
Arabs not only burnt the shipping and dismantled 
the fortress 2, but also, like the Persians, destroyed the 
remnant of the churches in Pelusium*. Finally, the 
charge is in direct antagonism to the statement of 
the nearly contemporary John of Nikiou ^, who says 
that the Copts did not lend any aid to the Muslim 
forces until after the enemy had taken possession 
of Fayiim and all its territory. What point of time 
this denotes is doubtful : it is certain that it was 

^ Yakftt says two months; Eutychius, Makrtzi, and others one 
month. 

2 Al Kindi, quoted by Suy{iti. 

^ Severus, Brit. Mus. MS., p. 105. It was rebuilt later, and was 
not finally demolished until Baldwin I utterly destroyed it before 
his retreat in 151 5-6 a.d. 

* Ab^ Salih, p. 168. 

^ p. 559. Weil, who adopts and exaggerates this story against 
the Copts in his Geschichte der Chalifen^ had not seen John's 
chronicle. He is in any case rather a compiler than a student or 
critic of this period. 

P 2 



212 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

subsequent to the capture of Babylon, and that the 
aid then given was very partial and Hmited. 

By the reduction of Faramd the Arab forces had 
now secured their only line of communication, and of 
retreat in case of disaster. They had also formed 
some measure of the gigantic task which lay before 
them, if they were ever to capture the far more 
powerful fortress of Babylon and the mighty city of 
Alexandria. *Amr must have realized that without 
the promised reinforcements he was doomed to 
failure ; and he knew that reinforcements could 
come by Farami alone \ He could spare no troops 
to hold the town, and he was therefore more than 
justified in razing its defences, and making it useless 
to the enemy, if recaptured. What the Romans 
were about meanwhile, it is difficult to conjecture. 
Cyrus must have known that it was merely a question 
of time, when the Muslim forces overrunning Syria 

^ This consideration quite refutes Ibn Khaldiin's extraordinary 
statement that ' The Arabs besieged 'Ain Shams (Heliopolis) and 
sent Abrahah ibn as Saffah to besiege Farama, and Anf ibn 
M^lik to besiege Alexandria' ! {Kitdb al 'abar wa Diwdn al mubtadi 
wal Khabarfi aiyam aVArab^ &c., supplement to pt. ii. p. 114). 
But Ibn Khaldiin's story is utterly discredited : for example, he 
makes Bab-al-Ylin the first point attacked, and from that 'Amr 
marches through the Delta to Misr ! He thus confuses Pelusium 
with Babylon. Finally he makes 'Ain Shams the scene of a long 
siege, thus confusing that place also with Babylon. He has clearly 
copied or corrected various MSS. without the smallest under- 
standing either of their history or of their geography. It is Ibn al 
Athir who also says, 'The first place captured was Bab-al-Yiin, and 
the next march was to Misr ' (ed. C. J. Tornberg, vol. ii. p. 440). 
I may add that Makrizt quotes Saif ibn 'Umar as the authority for 
the dispatch of a force from 'Ain Shams to Alexandria ; but such 
a march would have been almost a physical impossibility, and, from 
a military point of view, it would, even if possible, have been an 
act of sheer madness. 



opening of the Campaign 213 

would turn their arms against Egypt. The event 
was bound to come. Common prudence would have 
established posts of observation along the desert, at 
least as far out as *Arish, to give timely warning ; 
and would have prepared an army to concentrate on 
Pelusium. Had the Romans sent only 10,000 men 
to harass *Amr s line of march, or had they mustered 
such an army under the fortress, they could scarcely 
have failed to rout and crush the little force of 
Arabs, although even that result might not have 
deferred for long the fate of Egypt. Instead of 
that, they did nothing. They trusted to the normal 
garrison to defend the town ; and though they were 
in a sense surprised by the sudden advance of the 
Arabs, yet during the month of siege they sent no 
troops to Its relief or rescue. Their tame and 
needless loss of Pelusium was their first great 
blunder in the war ; is it possible that one may call 
it the first act in the great betrayal of the Empire 
by Cyrus ? Had he already formed in his mind the 
plan for rendering the patriarchate of Alexandria 
independent of Constantinople by an alliance with 
the Arabs against the Empire ? On no other theory 
does it seem possible to explain his action, at least 
in its later developments. 

It was now past the middle of January, 640 a. d., 
which year nearly coincided with the Muslim a.h. 
19^, when *Amr resumed his march. His losses 
in the recent fighting were more than made good 
by a number of Beduins who, scenting war and 
plunder, had flocked to his standard 2. From the 

' A. H. 19 began on January 2, 640, and ended with December 20, 
640. 

* Makrlzi says that at Jabal' al Jalal the tribe of Rashidah and 
some of the tribes of Lakhm joined 'Amr. In the previous century, 



214 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

salt-encrusted country round Peluslum he passed 
over a stretch of white shell-strewn sand, till he 
reached the ancient Migdol ^ to the south-west, thence 
to the point now known as Al Kantarah on the Suez 
Canal. Here the desert changes to a hard and 
pebbly surface, while its monotony is relieved by a 
few green patches of vegetation and reedy brackish 
lagoons. The Arabs kept to the desert, and probably 
made for Salahlah. Most ancient conquerors of 
Egypt, like Cambyses, took a different route, striking 
nearly due west from Pelusium to Synhur and Tanis, 
and thence up through the Delta to Bubastis ^ : but 
by this time the swamps round Lake Manzalah had 
spread so as to render that route more difficult. 
Besides, *Amr s army were all mounted, and had no 
means of bridging canals or rivers. Moving then 
from Salahiah or K assassin nearly due south, *Amr 
crossed the hills ^ of the Wadi Tumilat near the 

c. 565 A.D, Antoninus Martyr, who passed this way from his visit to 
the Holy Places, speaks of a great Saracen idol and festival as held 
on Mount Horeb, and of predatory Beduins as roaming the desert 
near ' Phara,' which may be the same as Faram^ or Pelusium 
(Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, vol. ii. pp. 30-33). The Lakhm, 
however, were not Arabs : see Ibn Dukmak, part iv. p. 5. 

^ Jacques de Vitry seems to mention Migdol when he says, 
* Beyond Pharamia (Al Farama) comes another ancient city, which 
stands in the wilderness near the sea-shore ' : but he is very con- 
fused, for he continues, ^ and next to it is the city of Belbeis, which 
is called Pelusium and is five stadia from the sea-shore ' (Palestine 
Pilgrims Text Society, vol. xi. p. 14). 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 392. The present Arabic names of these 
towns are Sanhur, San, and Tall Bastah or Zagazig. 

^ This expression comes from Severus (Brit. Mus. MS.,p. 105), and 
it is adopted by Abii Salih (p. 71). I do not see what other hills 
could be meant than those of the Wadi Tumilat. The Cairo MS. 
says that they ' took the hills ' (jabal), which may mean merely 
'kept to the desert.' 



opening of the Campaign 215 

place now known for the battle of Tall al Kablr ; 
and when once he was clear of the Wadi, there 
remained but a short and easy march between him 
and Bilbais. 

Here, however, the Roman forces began to show 
some resistance. Their scouts had watched the 
progress of the Arabs across the desert, but there 
had been no fighting beyond some trifling skirmishes. 
The story that two bishops, called Abta Maryam and 
Abli Maryam (or Abta Martam), were sent by the 
Mukaukas to parley with the Arabs, is somewhat 
legendary ^ No bishops of such name ever existed, 
and the incident may be a myth which has arisen 
from the boundless confusion caused in the minds 
of Arab historians by the perusal of documents in 
which matters of legend and history are hopelessly 
intermingled, while the text has been corrupted at 
the hand of careless copyists. Yet there is reason 
to think that some sort of deputation headed by 
a bishop did parley with 'Amr at this time. Tabari 
even relates that 'Amr urged the Copts to assist the 
Muslim forces on the ground of the kinship subsist- 
ing between Copts and Arabs through Hagar. The 
Copts, however, argued that this relationship was 
somewhat shadowy, whereupon *Amr granted them 
four days to consider the matter. But the Roman 
general had no need to ponder arguments of this 
kind. Artabun, as he is called by Arab writers, or 
Aretion as he should be called, was probably the 
same person as the Roman governor of Jerusalem ^, 

* Ibn al Athir seems responsible for this story, which I have 
examined and refuted in the Appendix, ' On the Identity of the 
Mukaukas/ 

2 See ante, p. 195. The corruption of jjj^l into ^j^^} is 
obvious : Abu '1 Mahasin gives the correct form. 



2i6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

who, as we have seen, fled to Egypt when the city 
was about to surrender to Omar. As general of the 
Roman troops he decided to force a battle, and on 
the second day after the parley he surprised the 
Arab camp by a fierce onslaught at night. But 
the result was disastrous, and his force was cut to 
pieces ^. Still the town of Bilbais was strong enough 
to detain *Amr for a full month, during which frequent 
encounters took place, and its capture caused some 
loss to the invaders. On the other hand, the Romans 
are said to have lost i,ooo in killed and 3,000 
prisoners 2. 

*Amr was now but one day's march from the head 
of the Delta. He passed by Heliopolis, and still 
skirting the cultivated land, aimed for a point on 
the Nile called Umm Di&nain, which lay to the 
north of Babylon, in what is now the heart of 

1 Ibn Khaldiin. 

2 So much may be believed of the entertaining legend about 
Armaniisah, daughter of Al Mukaukas, told by Wakidt. He 
relates that she was on her way to Caesarea to marry Constantine, 
son of Heraclius, when, learning that Caesarea was besieged by 
the Arabs, she returned to Egypt with all her servants and treasures, 
and reached Bilbais, only to be besieged by *Amr's forces. 'Amr 
is said to have treated her with chivalrous regard, and to have 
restored her with all her jewels to her father. I need not waste 
time in dissecting this legend : the fact that Al Mukaukas was 
Patriarch of Alexandria would alone be decisive in disproving it. 
The story is given by Quatremere {Mem, Hist, et Giog, t. i. 
p. 53), and upon it is based the historical novel Armenosa 
of Egypt by the Very Rev. C. H. Butcher, D.D. It is worth 
adding that 'Armanfisah* is given as the old name of Armant 
by Abft SE^lih (p. 279). Ibn *Abd al Hakam with similar un- 
reality speaks of the wife oi Al Mukaukas, and tells a story 
about a vineyard which she owned and flooded, so that Lake 
Mareotis was formed. It is a pity that these myths, which are 
often inspired by the fancy of the Arabian Nights, must be 
banished from the domain of history. 



opening of the Campaign 217 

Cairo ^. But the Roman troops were at length more 
alert, and were not prepared to allow the seizure of 
this fortified position, with its harbour and shipping, 
which were both of great strategical value. The 
commander-in-chief of all the Roman forces in Egypt 
at this time was Theodore, a dilatory and incom- 
petent general, who had only just discovered that he 
had something more than a raid of Beduins to deal 
with. Cyrus, the Mukaukas, the Viceroy of Egypt 
and imperial Patriarch of Alexandria, seems now to 
have hurried up with Theodore to the fortress of 
Babylon, where enough troops were assembled to put 
in the field against the Arabs. Umm Dilnain itself 
was strongly held, and the main force of the Romans, 

* There is, I think, no doubt that this place, called by the Arabs 
Umm Dtinaitiy is the same as that called by John of Nikiou 
Tendunias. If the initial letter, which doubtless represents the 
Coptic feminine article, is removed, the resemblance between the 
two names is close enough. Zotenberg (p. 557, n. 2) is mistaken 
in putting Tendunias to the south of the fortress of Babylon. The 
course of the narrative makes this improbable : but further Umm 
Dfinain is expressly identified by Yakfit and Makrizi with a place 
which they call Al Maks, situated on the west bank of the canal 
(i. e. Trajan's canal) and on the river Nile. Makrizt adds that at 
the time of the conquest it formed the harbour for Misr. Now 
it is well known that the original Al Maks occupied what is now 
the Esbektah Garden of Cairo. The Nile, which passed under the 
walls of Babylon and Dair Ab(i 's Saifain, ran considerably to the 
east of the present channel, and after rounding Al Kabsh the stream 
passed north to the position indicated. Here then, near the 
Esbekiah, must be placed the Roman fort of Tendunias, with the 
harbour and docks of Misr, and this is the scene of the fighting. 
The name Tendunias probably is derived from the Coptic 
Td.nT(ji)iii«.c, as M. Casanova suggests, and the Arabic is a mere 
echo of the sound without meaning. That the Nile should have so 
far shifted its course in twelve centuries is not surprising ; and Ibn 
Dukmak leaves no doubt on the subject. See also Prof. Lane- 
Poole's Cairo^ plan on p. 256. 



2i8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

secure behind the massive walls of their fortress, 
could choose their own moment for attack and for 
retreat. Several weeks accordingly passed in a 
series of indecisive engagements, which hurt the 
Romans little, but wore down slowly the numbers of 
the Muslims, already perilously weak for the enter- 
prise on which they had ventured. 

Indeed *Amr was now in a somewhat serious 
predicament. He had reconnoitred the country 
round, and found that he could not hope with his 
present forces either to invest or to storm the castle 
of Babylon, nor even to seize the city of Misr, which 
adjoined and nearly surrounded it. The recent 
battles had not been so uniformly in favour of the 
Muslims as their enthusiasm and their fighting powers 
had led them to anticipate. It was known that Omar 
had promised to forward reinforcements, and *Amr 
now sent urgent dispatches to press for their arrival. 
But there was no sign of their coming. Every day's 
delay was now a gain to the enemy, and it seemed 
that the issue of the war hung in the balance : 
either scale might prove the scale of victory ^ But 
though the position was critical, it was not in the 
nature of the Saracen general to despair or to think 
of retreat. Recognizing, however, the fact that his 
main objective, the capture of Babylon, was for the 
moment out of reach, *Amr resolved on a diversion 
of singular boldness. His project was nothing less 
than to make a dash for the Fayiim, a rich province 
some fifty miles further south, but on the opposite or 
western bank of the Nile. For this purpose the 

^ The Arab writers admit this. Makrizt says that at Umm 
Dunain * there was much fighting, and victory delayed,* while Abu 
'1 Mahasin's words are even stronger — ' there was much fighting, 
and it was now doubtful which side would have the victory.' 



opening of the Campaign 219 

undisputed possession of Umm Dunain was essential, 
at least for a time ; and he resolved to achieve it at 
all costs. How the place was carried is not known, 
but the demand which *Amr made on the endurance 
of his men is shown by an anecdote of this period. 
He was speaking sternly to some of them, in whom 
he had noticed a failure of strength or of heart, 
when a trooper murmured, 'We are not made of 
iron ! * ' Silence, you dog ! ' roared the commander. 
* If I am a dog,* rejoined the trooper, * you are a 
leader of dogs ' — a remark which turned the laugh 
against *Amr, and which seems to have gone un- 
punished. But the task was accomplished, and the 
capture of Umm Dunain established *Amr's force 
on the Nile banks, and enabled him to seize boats 
enough to transport his diminished army across 
the river \ 

^ The Chronicle of John of Nikiou, our most important authority, 
which is a total blank as regards the earlier part of the invasion, 
now begins to deal with the movements of the Arabs. The blank 
most unfortunately covers the whole reign of Heraclius from his 
accession to this point. It is most lamentable that all the leaves 
with John's account of the Persian wars, of the Persian occupation 
of Egypt, and of the ten years' persecution, have been entirely lost, 
while those that remain are in the most puzzling disorder. It is 
certain that some chapters are entirely out of place in the text : it 
is equally certain that whole sentences are out of place in some 
chapters: while repetitions and omissions make confusion worse 
confounded. But there seems no doubt that this raid into the 
Fayiim took place at the time and in the order I have given. It is 
not mentioned, I believe, by any Arab historian. Indeed Suyutt, 
who appears to be quoting Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, says that though 
*Amr after the capture of Misr sent troops of horsemen to the 
towns and villages round about, yet the Fayum remained unknown 
to the Arabs for a year {Husn al MuMdarah, p. 85). This is in 
direct contradiction to John's story, but there can be no hesitation 
in preferring the seventh-century native historian. Baladhuri, who 
wrote in the ninth century (about 150 years after John), puts the 



220 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

capture of the town of Heliopolis, of the Fayfim, of Ushm^nain, 
and Upper Egypt generally after the fall of Babylon {FutHh al 
Bulddn, p. 217) : but as regards Heliopolis the mistake is so indis- 
putable that it may be safely presumed with regard to the other 
places. Ibn *Abd al Hakam's account of the occupation of the 
Fayflm, as cited by Makrizt, is given by Quatrem^re, M^m. Ghg. et 
Hist. t. i. pp. 407 seq. 



CHAPTER XVI 

. BATTLE OF HELIOPOLIS 

Amr's raid on the Fay urn. The Roman position. Capture of 
Bahnasa. John, general of militia, slain. Roman movement from 
Nikiou to Babylon. Partial failure of the raid and retreat of *Amr. 
Arrival of Muslim reinforcements. Arab armies unite at Heliopolis. 
Roman forces advance from Babylon to give battle. 'Amr's tactics. 
Defeat of the Romans. Second capture of Tendunias and occupa- 
tion of the Fayiim. Treatment of Roman officials. 

As soon as the passage of the river was safely 
accomplished, 'Amr's force marched southward by 
the cultivated land to Memphis. This ancient city 
(which has now completely disappeared) had been 
falling into decay ever since the foundation of 
Alexandria : but vast ruins and remains still marked 
the site of the capital of the Pharaohs at this time, 
and there were still a good many inhabited houses, 
although the town of Misr, which lay mostly south 
of Babylon on the opposite side of the Nile, had 
become far more populous and important and had 
even usurped the name of Memphis ^ It was here, 

^ The remains of Memphis are recorded in the tenth century by 
Ibn al Fakth, who heard from an old man of a great palace which 
was in one block of stone. He himself oddly remarks, ' Memphis, 
the city of Pharaoh, has seventy gates and walls of iron and 
copper' {Bihl. Geog. Arab, part vi. pp. 58 and 73). Ya'kubi, 
rather earlier, says, 'The city of Memphis is falling into ruin.' 
The town in the region round Kasr ash Shama' was undoubtedly a 
Pharaonic settlement. Pharaonic monuments have been found 
there : one well-known statue stood near the southern gate of the 
fortress, and stones with hieroglyphic inscriptions have been found 
in the fortress walls. This town was called Misr, but Misr and 
Menf seem sometimes interchanged. Thus 'Abd al Latif says, 
' Then there are the monuments which are in Misr al Kadtmah : 



222 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

perhaps, from the western bank that the Saracen army 
first had a clear view of the city of MIsr and the 
great towers of Babylon rising from the water's edge 
across the isle of Raudah. A nature like *Amr s 
may have been stirred as he surveyed the Pyramids 
on his right, the Nile and Babylon on his left, and 
the ruins of Memphis about him, though his troop 
of desert warriors, as they threaded among the palm- 
groves, recked but little of the ancient civilization or 
of the Roman or Byzantine buildings that met their 
gaze. 

The course of their journey is far from clear. 
The city of Piom or Fayum was held by the 
governor Domentianus, while Theodosius the Pre- 
fect of the province was with Anastasius, Prefect of 
Alexandria, in the Delta not far from Nikiou. The 
defence of the province was entrusted to John^ 
general of the militia or local levies, with John of 
Maros under his orders. The points of entrance to 
the Faytim were strongly guarded, and in particular 
a post of observation was established by the Romans 

and this city is by Al Jizah beyond Fustat, and it is the city which 
the Pharaohs dwelt in, and which was the seat of the kingly govern- 
ment' (ed. J. White, p. 117). The term Misr seems to have had 
almost a generic force : thus Al Misrain (the two cities) is used of 
Kiifah and Bosrah by Ibn Khallikan (ed. de Slane, vol. iv. p. 204) : 
but in Egypt as a rule it meant the town on the eastern bank of 
the Nile by Babylon. 

^ Zotenberg (p. 554, n. i) identifies this John with the John, 
Duke of Barca or Barcaina, mentioned by Nicephorus. I have 
shown that Nicephorus' story of the invasion is totally untrust- 
worthy (p. 207 supra) ; still this John was a person of importance, 
and there is every reason to think that he was directly com- 
missioned by Heraclius. For it was doubtless the same ' general 
of the militia' who had brought the famous Ecthesis from Sergius 
to Cyrus, and who with the Ecthesis brought the cross referred to 
by John of Nikiou. See supra, p. 182, and note. 



I 



Battle of Heliopolis 223 

at Hajar al Lahun ^ to keep watch over the enemy 
and report his movements to John, who was stationed 
on the bank of the river. A force of cavalry and 
archers was also sent against the Arabs to arrest 
their march. The Saracen army seem to have 
found it impossible to break through the Roman 
cordon, and edged off to the desert hills, capturing 
a large quantity of cattle on the way. They 
advanced in this way to a town called Bahnasij 
which they took by storm, and slaughtered all 
before them — men, women, and children 2. 'Amr 
now faced about suddenly, as he heard that John 
with a small force of fifty men had been following 
him and spying his movements, and was at some 
distance from his supports. John, realizing his 
danger, endeavoured by a rapid retreat to regain 
his camp at Abuit^ at no great distance on the 
bank of the Nile. His troop marched by night, 

^ For information on this place reference may be made to 
Drs. Grenfell and Hunt's Faydm Towns and their Papyri^ P- ^3 s-^^d 
pi. xviii. Al Lahfin was on the Bahr Yusuf, about ten miles from 
the city of Fayum, and it blocked the mouth of the valley dividing 
the mountain ranges vAixch encircled the Arsinoite nome. It was 
a place of great strategic importance for the defence of the pro- 
vince. See also Mas'iidt, op. cit., pp. 385-6. 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 555. The story of the massacre must be 
believed : it was not against the laws of war at that time, and we 
shall find other instances of the same thing. The Bahnasa here 
meant was of course in the Fayfim district, and not the well-known 
Bahnasa, which marks the site of the ancient Oxyrhynchus : this was 
fifty miles further south. See Am^lineau, G/og. Copte^ p. 92. 

^ The position of Abiiit is uncertain. Zotenberg identifies it 
with the place of that name in the province of Lycopolis or Siut, 
but this is absolutely impossible, as that place is considerably 
further south than Bahnasa. Am^lineau {Geog. Copte, p. 3) shows 
that there were two places called Abuit, and the one here in 
question must be that now in the mfidtriah of Banisuaif. It lies 
near Bfisir Kfiridus, nearly due east of Hajar al Lahfin. 



224 ^^^ Arab Conquest of Egypt 

taking cover hy day in palm-groves and thickets. 
But their hiding-place was betrayed to 'Amr by 
a Beduin chiefs They were surrounded and slain 
to the last man. The general John and his lieutenant 
both perished, for the Arabs took no prisoners. 

When the commander-in-chief Theodore heard 
of this disaster, he broke into loud lamentations. 
Too late as usual, he now hurried all available 
troops up the river to the island of Lokyon, while 
Anastasius and Theodosius hastened from Nikiou 
to the castle of Babylon to strengthen the garrison. 
From Babylon, however, a further force was sent 
under a general named Leontius to the Roman 
camp at AbMt. On reaching the camp, Leontius, 
who was obese and indolent and knew nothing of 
war, found that the Egyptian forces were already 
in touch with the Arabs, and that Theodore, who 
had thrown his troops into the city of Faytam, was 
making frequent sorties against the Arab head 
quarters at Bahnasa. Judging that 'Amr would 
soon be repulsed from that region, he left only 
half of his men with Theodore, and returned with 
the other half to report what he had seen to the 
commanders at Babylon. 

There is no doubt that the Saracens failed to 
capture the city of Fay{im, and that they now began 
to retire down the river northward again. Theodore 
gave orders to search for the body of John the 
general, which had been thrown into the Nile. 
It was recovered at last with a net, and embalmed ; 
then it was placed on a bier with every sign of 
mourning, and carried down the river to Babylon, 

^ Zotenberg translates 'le chef des partisans,' but Dr. Charles 
renders * the chief of the brigands,' by whom are doubtless meant 
the marauding dwellers in the desert. 



Battle of Heliopolis 225 

whence it was sent on to Heraclius ^ The defeat 
and death of John made a deep impression on the 
Emperor, who lost no time in signifying his dis- 
pleasure to Theodore ; and the commander-in-chief, 
knowing that he must have been judged guilty of 
John's death upon reports from Theodosius and 
Anastaslus, conceived a bitter enmity against those 
officers. 

But it was not mere failure which brought about 
the retirement of the Arabs from the Faytim. Indeed 
'Amr had probably done more than he had expected. 
He had extricated his army from a dangerous position 
at Tendunias, and had removed it to a place of 
comparative safety: he had kept it employed and 
had won several successes, if no very great victory : 
and above all he had gained time. The long-delayed 
reinforcements were now coming, and it was the. 
news of their arrival which caused the Muslim chief 
to retrace his steps for the purpose of meeting them. 
Theodore, likew^lse, came down the river again with 
his troops to the fortress of Babylon, where a large 
army had assembled from different quarters of 
Egypt. 

The expedition to the Fayum had started about 

the beginning of May, and it had taken some weeks 

"^^^^weeks which had been worse than wasted for the 

Romans, while they greatly advantaged the Arabs. 

It was probably on June 6 ^ that the second Muslim 

* This fact is a further proof that John had a direct commission 
from the Emperor. Theodore evidently relied on John's military 
skill, and was deeply concerned by his death. The direct evidence 
that John was the bearer of the famous Ecthesis to Egypt, and that 
he brought with him a cross of great sanctity from the Emperor, 
has already been given above (p. 182, n. i). 

' I have shown in the essay on ' The Chronology of the Arab 



226 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

army dispatched by Omar arrived in the neigh- 
bourhood of Heliopolis. This contingent was under 
the command of a noted leader named Az Zubair 
ibn al *Awwam, a kinsman and Companion of the 
Prophet and one of the six counsellors. The 
legion under him numbered 4,000 men, but was 
being followed at a short distance by two other 
columns of equal strength, so that the total reinforce- 
ments amounted to 12,000 men\ The Nile begins 
to rise in its deep channel about midsummer, and 
the Romans were anxious to give battle with their 
now united forces before the waters overflowed. 
But they seem to have failed entirely to prevent 
the junction of the divided Saracen army. They 

Conquest/ that the Coptic tradition associates this date with the 
appearance of the Arabs in Egypt, and that it cannot possibly 
apply to *Amr's first arrival. It may, however, mark the arrival of 
the reinforcing army. 

^ Authorities differ about the numbers. Ibn *Abd al Hakam 
says 4,000; Baladhurt says 10,000 or 12,000; Yakfit 12,000; 
Makrizi quotes from Al Kindt a statement of Yazid's that 'Ami's 
fighting force amounted to 15,500 — i. e. an original force of 
3,500 augmented by 12,000; while Suyfitt definitely says that 
the 1 2,000 came in detachments — a view also noticed by Makrizi 
— and he mentions one detachment, viz. that under Zubair, as con- 
sisting of 4,000 men. This explains why some Arab writers allege 
that the total of reinforcements was only 4,000 men. John of 
Nikiou, curiously enough, gives the same number 4,000, and adds 
that their commander, named Walwarya, was a barbarian, or negro. 
The name is unrecognizable, but there was a black commander 
named *Ubddah in one of the contingents: and, as Zotenberg 
remarks, * Walwarya' is an obvious corruption. Yakut makes 
'Ubadah ibn as Samit, Al Mikdad ibn al Aswad, and Maslamah 
ibn Mukhallad leaders each of 1,000 men, and Zubair the same. 

There is no sort of confusion not found among Arab historians, 
so that it is not surprising to find Makrizi deferring the arrival 
of the reinforcements — 12,000 men under Zubair — until the time 
when the investment of Babylon was proceeding. 



Battle of Heliopolis 2,2^ 

possessed Babylon ; they held the command of 
the river; and they had reoccupied the fortified 
outpost of Umm Dtanain : so that with common 
skill and prudence they might have foiled all 'Amr s 
efforts to recross to the eastern bank, and might 
have crushed him while he was thus isolated. 

Yet with every advantage in their favour they 
did not prevent *Amr from stealing or forcing the 
passage. It seems likely that he crossed somewhat 
lower down, to the north of Umm Dunain ; for 
Trajan's Canal had silted up from neglect, and 
would have presented no obstacle, even had the 
Nile already risen. *Amr had been aware that the 
Muslim reinforcements were marching in two columns 
on *Ain Shams or Heliopolis, and his position on 
the western bank had been decidedly dangerous ^ : 
indeed, he had been seriously alarmed lest the 
Romans should, by barring his passage, render it 
impossible to join forces with Zubair. But as usual 
Theodore lost his opportunity of striking home, 
and 'Amr s army, elated with their adventures, 
marched into the Muslim camp at Heliopolis. 

In ancient times Heliopolis had been one of the 
most famous cities of Egypt. Its name of Cn^ 
familiar in the Mosaic narrative, was still preserved 
as the name in common use among the Copts in the 

* John's text in chapter cxii (p. 556) is hopelessly dislocated. 
The sentence (1. 2, *Laissant de cot^ les villes fortifiees ils 
s'^taient dirig^s vers une locality nomm^e Tendounyas et s'^taient 
embarques sur le fleuve,' refers to the start of the expedition to the 
Fay^m ; the next sentence speaks of the capture of Misr ; and the 
next of the return from the Fay{im ! A critical reconstruction of 
the text is much wanted. But 'Amr's disquiet at his position comes 
out clearly. 

^ Champollion le Jeune has an interesting note on this place, 
LEgypte sous les Pharaons, t. ii. pp. 36-41. 

Q 2 



228 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

seventh century, and that it connoted the idea of 
* sun-city/ expressed in the Greek form Heliopolis, 
is not questioned : even the Arabs retained this 
idea when they changed the name of the place 
to *Ain Shams, i.e. Fountain or Well of the Sun \ 
6n had been no less famous for the splendour of 
its monuments than for its renown as a religious 
centre and seat of learning. When Strabo visited 
it six hundred years before this period, although 
wars and sieges and the changes of time had over- 
thrown and ruined most of the temples and statues, 
yet people still pointed out the halls in which Plato 
had studied. But when the Arabs came, little of 
the ancient grandeur remained beyond some broken 
walls and half-buried sphinxes, and the solitary 
obelisk, which stands to this day as a memorial of 
a vanished world. 

Heliopolis was on a slight eminence snd had been 
surrounded by a rampart of great thickness, some 
traces of which are still visible ^. Though it had 
no great military importance at this time, yet it was 
capable of defence ; it was well supplied with water ; 
and it was convenient for provisioning the army. 
For these reasons 'Amr retained it as his head 

^ The modern name Matariah seems to have prevailed over 
'Ain Shams. The place is well known to travellers for the Virgin's 
Tree, and the fountain by which the Holy Family rested. 

2 Although Heliopolis and On are usually identified, the recent ■ 
War Office map identifies On with Tall al Yahudiah and Helio- 
polis with Tall al Hassan. The ruins at Tall al Yahudiah are on 
an eminence girt with a crude brick wall, while at Tall al Hassan 
there still remains on the south side a rampart twenty feet high. 
It must have been at the latter place that *Amr camped, as Tall 
al Yahudiah is some twelve miles further north. The entire level 
of the country has risen several feet since the seventh century, as is 
proved both by the depth to which the obelisk is now sunken and 
the depth at which other remains now lie beneath the desert plain. 



Battle of Heliopolis 2,21^ 

quarters, while preparing for the conflict which was 
impending. We have already seen that Theodore 
at Babylon had been drawing troops from the Delta 
towns : but by the time he had massed an army 
capable of driving the Muslims out of Heliopolis, 
it is probable that the whole of the reinforcements 
sent by Omar had arrived, and 'Amr now found 
himself at the head of about 15,000 men, including 
some of the most renowned soldiers of Islam ^. 
What numbers the Romans mustered can only be 
conjectured. They had a sound estimate of the 
enemy's valour. Earlier in the war a Copt was 
overheard expressing astonishment that the Arabs 
had dared to enter Egypt and array their handful 
of men against the immense forces of the Emperor's 
army ; to which another Copt answered that the 
Arabs were incapable of yielding — they must either 
prove victorious or die to the last man 2. Another 
story is that the Romans were reluctant to fight, 
sa3ang, *We have small chance against the men 

^ Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, according to Abu '1 Maliasin, gives the 
following list of the chief companions and helpers of the Prophet 
with the army, (i) The Companions were *Amr and his son 
'Abdallah ; Az Zubair ; 'Abdallah, son of the Caliph Omar ; Sa'd 
ibn Abt Wakkas (whose presence is disputed); Kharijah ibn 
Hudhafah; Kais ibn Abi '1 'As as Sahmi; Al Mikdad ibn al 
Aswad; 'Abdallah ibn Sad ibn Abi Sarh; Nafi* ibn 'Abd Kais al 
Fahri ; Abft Rafi', the freedman of the Apostle of God ; Ibn Ibdah ; 
'Abdarrahman and Rabi'ah, sons of Shurahbil ibn Hasanah ; and 
Wardan, the freedman of *Amr. (2) The Helpers were 'Ubadah " 
ibn as Samit; Muhammad ibn Maslamah; Abu Aiyfib Khalid 
ibn Yazid ; Abu Darda 'Uwaimir ibn 'Aamir, also called 'Uwaimir ibn 
Yazid. The same writer also gives some other names of less illus- 
trious Arabs : see An Nujum az Zdhirah fi Muluk Misr wal 
Kdhirah, ed. Juynboll et Matthes (Lugd. Bat. 1885-61), vol. i. 
p. 22. 

2 Abfi '1 Mahasin, p. 8. 



m^o The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

who have conquered Chosroes and Caesar in Syria/ 
But these stories are from Arab sources, and the 
latter is certainly doubtful. It is incontestable, 
however, that the Romans had a vast superiority 
in numbers, and their forces now available for 
battle — apart from fortress garrisons — were not less 
than 20,000. 

It was evidently *Amr's policy to draw the Roman 
army into the open plain away from Babylon ; and 
when Theodore felt himself strong enough to take 
the offensive, his force moved out towards Heliopolis 
— a distance of six or seven miles from his camp. 
Theodosius and Anastasius were in command of the 
cavalry, but the bulk of the Roman army were foot 
soldiers — spearmen and archers. 'Amr's spies had 
given him warning in good time of the enemy's 
intentions, and he had disposed his forces in position. 
He himself with the main body of the Arabs would 
advance from Heliopolis to meet the Romans : but 
under cover of night he detached two other bodies 
of troops, placing one not far from Umm Dunain 
and the other under Kharijah at a point further 
east — probably in the fold of the hills ^ close to 
what is now the citadel of Cairo. The line of the 
Roman advance thus lay between the two detached 
corps of Arabs, which had orders to fall on the 
flank and rear of the enemy when the right oppor- 
tunity offered 2. It was early morning when the 

^ This is probably the incident mentioned in a wrong connexion 
by Makrizi, where he says that *Amr sent 500 horsemen under 
command of Khdrijah that they might hide and fall on the enemy 
as they came out from among the monasteries. * They went off by 
night and entered the caves of Banii Wail before morning.' Early 
after dawn when the battle began, they surprised the Romans by 
falling on their rear and completed their discomfiture. 

^ Zotenberg finds it difficult to understand the battle in view of 



Battle of Heliopolis 231 

Roman forces emerged from the gardens and 
monasteries which covered the ground north-east- 
ward of the fortress, and deployed in the open^ 

the distances between the places mentioned. He errs in putting 
Tendunias (Umm Dunain) to the south of Babylon instead of to 
the north. John of Nikiou doubtless regarded it as more north- 
west, and so he calls the other point in contrast north of Babylon : 
but apart from other objections, 'Amr's plan of battle is reduced to 
absurdity by placing one of his detachments south of Babylon, one 
north, and the main army at Heliopolis. Besides, the way to the 
south was entirely blocked by the Roman fortress and camp. By 
supposing that *Amr advanced to meet the Roman army, instead of 
waiting at his base, one gets rid of the difficulty about distance. 
Moreover, Zotenberg forgets that the Nile flowed much further 
east than at present. Place one Arab detachment near the Esbekiah 
(Umm Dfinain) and the other near the Citadel or the Red Mountain, 
and the course of the battle is clear enough. One more remark. 
The ancient Heliopolis covered a far larger area than can now be 
easily imagined. This is clear not merely from remains discovered, 
but from the express testimony of Ibn Dukmak, who says : ' The 
city of *Ain Shams in ancient times was of great width and length 
and contiguous to ancient Misr on the site of the present Al 
Fustat ' (pt. V. p. 43). This must mean, I think, that there was 
very little interval between the outskirts of the two towns, though 
these outskirts consisted only of scattered houses and churches. 

^ My account of the battle of *Ain Shams will appear to be 
totally at variance with that given by Tabart (ed. Zotenberg, vol. iii. 
p. 463). For Tabari alleges that (i) the battle took place after the 
capture of Babylon : (2) Al Mukaukas with the Coptic army was 
in possession of *Ain Shams intending to march on Misr: (3) 
*Amr's army advanced up to the very gates of *Ain Shams: (4) The 
Coptic army was broken at the first shock, losing a great number 
of killed and prisoners : (5) much booty was taken, and the 
prisoners were sent to Medina. It may seem presumptuous to 
reject so circumstantial an account ; but quite apart from the 
necessity of preferring John of Nikiou's nearly contemporary 
evidence, it is quite clear that Tabari is making a geographical 
blunder. His story of the battle is doubtless true, but it was not 
the battle of 'Ain Shams. This is proved (i) by the order of 
events ; this battle cannot conceivably come after the capture of 
Misr, while other battles can and did: and (2) by the fact that 



232 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

They were in complete Ignorance of *Amr s stratagem, 
but they knew that his main army was marching 
from Heliopolis to meet them. The encounter 
probably took place about half way between the 
two camps, somewhere in the region now called 
'Abbasiah. Both sides knew that on that field 
the fate of Egypt would be decided; and both 
fought with obstinate courage. But while the 
struggle was at its fiercest, the Arab detachment 

Tabari himself virtually admits the blunder in describing 'Ain 
Shams as * a considerable town in the country of the Copts and 
situated towards the west*. This could only mean either west of 
the Nile, or west of the Delta : but *Ain Shams cannot possibly be 
described as either. The reference, however, is perhaps to one of 
the battles fought between Babylon and Alexandria, of which more 
anon : for these were fought in the west. 

This mistake of Tabart (who as a foreigner was ill acquainted 
with Egyptian geography) has been a fruitful source of error to 
Arab writers like Ibn al Athir, Ibn Khaldftn, &c. It is one more 
example of those confusions and perplexities which every historian 
of this period finds even in the best authorities, and has to unravel 
by the slow labour of criticism and comparison. But I think that 
there is a simple and certain explanation of this confusion, which 
reappears in other Arab writers. When Ibn al AtMr says the 
Arab leaders besieged 'Ain Shams, and makes Zubair mount the 
walls of 'Ain Shams (as we shall see that he mounted the walls of 
Kasr ash Shama'), we have the same confusion. Its origin lies in 
the name Babylon. This the Arabs, or some of them, took to 
mean Bdh-al-On^ i. e. gate of 6n, or gate of Heliopolis, and ''Ain 
Shams is the Arabic name for Heliopolis. Hence the two places 
are confounded : for while Baladhurt clearly says that Fust^t at 
the time of the conquest was called Ayun, later writers read this 
as ^/ Fiin and then took it to mean On, i. e. 'Ain Shams. Naturally, 
then, a siege of *Ain Shams is constructed upon the error, and 
incidents are transferred to it from Babylon. 

This solution has not, I think, been given before, but it explains 
many difficulties in the Arab writers. The forms Bab-al-Y{in, 
City of Lifin, Kasr-al-Y6n, Bab-al-Liik, Luniah, and Ayun all 
express in various ways the one misunderstanding of the Roman 
word Babylon. 



Battle of Heliopolis 233 

under Kharijah issued from the hills, and fell like 
a whirlwind on the rear of the Romans. Caught 
thus between two forces they fell into disorder, and 
moving somewhat to their left towards Umm Dunain 
were met and charged by what seemed a third Arab 
army. Disorder now turned into disaster, and in 
headlong flight they strove to escape the flashing 
scimitars of the Arabs. Some few got back to 
the fortress by land : many others, pressing towards 
the river, seized boats and sailed back to Babylon : 
but great numbers perished. The victorious Arabs 
took possession of Umm Dunain a second time. 
Of its Roman garrison all but 300 men had 
perished in the fight. These survivors retreated to 
the fortress of Babylon and shut the gates : but 
when they heard of the terrible slaughter which 
the Romans had suffered, they lost heart and fled 
down the river by boat to Nikiou. 

Even tradition is silent as regards the losses on 
either side. But it is known that the commander- 
in-chief, Theodore, and the two governors, Theo- 
dosius and Anastasius, were not among the slain. 
Enough Roman troops too were left to form, with 
those who had held the fortress during the battle, 
an effective garrison. But the advantages of the 
victory to the Arabs were enormous. The town 
of Misr, which had been hitherto protected by the 
Roman army at Babylon, was now at their mercy, 
and it was captured without further fighting \ They 
were now masters of the whole river-bank, above 

^ The heading of c. cxv in John's Chronicle reads, * Comment 
les Musulmans s'emparerent de Misr dans la quatorzieme annde 
du cycle lunaire,' but there is nothing 'about the capture in the text. 
It is but one proof among a hundred of the utterly defective and 
dislocated state of the text. 



1234 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

and below the fortress, and moving up their camp 
from HeHopoHs, they pitched it north and east of the 
fortress in the region of the gardens and churches — 
the region known in subsequent history as Fustdt. 
Their forces too were now both sufficient to be- 
leaguer Babylon and free to concert measures for 
its investment. The Roman army was swept away 
as a fighting force, and any remnant which escaped 
was either shut up within the fortress walls or 
scattered through the Delta in panic. Moreover 
the news of the Arab victory at once cleared the 
city of Fayiim of its defenders. For Domentianus, 
on learning the result of the battle, evacuated the 
city by night, and marched the garrison to Abuit : 
there they hastily embarked and fled down the 
river to Nikiou, without even telling the people of 
AbMt that they were abandoning the Fayiim to the 
enemy. As soon, however, as the flight of Domen- 
tianus was reported to *Amr, he flung a body of 
troops across the Nile; the towns of Fayum and 
Abuit were captured amid scenes of ruthless massacre ; 
and the whole province was brought under Muslim 
dominion. 

When the last sparks of resistance had thus been 
quenched in the Fayum, *Amr directed the troops 
there to concentrate at the town of Dalas^ as the 
most convenient place of embarkation. The com- 
mand of the river had for the moment passed to 
the victors — not the least result of the battle. The 
Romans still held the fortified island of Raudah in 
close connexion with Babylon, maintaining com- 
munication by boat between the two strongholds : 

^ Dalas, the Coptic Tiloj, the Greek Nilopolis, was on the 
western bank of the river, south of Memphis, and east of Fayiim 
dity. See Amdiineau, Ge'og, Copie, p. 136. 



Battle of HeliopoUs 235 

and for a while longer the navigation of the river 
remained more or less open, because the Arabs 
were as yet no sailors, and they were busy with 
further conquest by land. For *Amr now recalled 
the various troops of horsemen ^ which had scoured 
the country after the battle of Heliopolis ; and he 
ordered Apa Cyrus ^ of Dalds to supply Nile boats 
for the transport of the force in the Fayum from 
the western to the eastern bank. His intention 
was to subjugate the whole province of Misr, which 
extended over the apex of the Delta. 

The battle of Heliopolis was probably fought 
about the middle of July, 640 a.d. Not less than 
a fortnight was spent in taking possession of the 
Fayum, so that we are brought to the beginning of 
August for the expedition to the Delta. *Amr 
wished to strike a blow there before the rise of the 
Nile made it impossible. George, the Prefect of 
the province of Misr, had either been captured 
when the town was taken or had sent in his sub- 

^ Ibn *Abd al Hakam (quoted by Suyfiti) says that ' after the 
completion of the conquest of Misr (i. e. the town), *Amr sent troops 
of horsemen to the towns and villages round about/ John of 
Nikiou says of the same time, ' II r^unissait aupres de lui toutes 
ses troupes pour exdcuter de nombreuses expeditions' — a clear 
agreement. 

^ This is the Abdkiri in John of Nikiou, p. 559. Zotenberg, 
puzzled by the word, remarks, * II n'est pas certain que ce mot soit 
un nom propre.' But all shadow of doubt is removed by documents 
in Karabacek's Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer : Fiihrer durch dieAus- 
stellung. No. 551 is a letter from the well-known Kharijah 
(p. 230 supra) to Apa Cyrus, pagarch of Heracleopolis Magna, and 
no. 558, written in Greek and Arabic and dated April 25, 643, is 
from 'Abdallah ibn Jabir to Christophorus and Theodorakius, sons 
of the same Apa Cyrus. This latter is the earliest document of 
Islam in Egypt, if not in the world. No. 554 gives the same name 
again. 



236 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

mission. Indeed the terror of the Arabs' name 
now secured all the country within reach of their 
sword, save only the fortified places. 

But the Delta was covered with waterways, some 
of which were unfordable : and George was ordered 
at once to have a bridge built over the canal at 
Kaliub. ' And/ says John of Nikiou, * people began 
to help the Muslims \' It is unfortunate that the 
bishop's language is not more explicit ; but, taken 
in connexion with the context and with subsequent 
passages, this remark seems to prove nothing except 
that service was requisitioned from the country folk. 
it was, in other words, forced, not voluntary. Indeed 
this very passage makes that meaning clear. For 
after recording that the Arabs captured the important 
towns of Athrlb and Manuf with all their territory, 
and subjugated the whole province of Misr, the 
writer continues, * Not content with that, *Amr had 
the Roman magistrates arrested and their hands 
and feet fettered with chains or logs of wood : he 
extorted great sums of money, laid a double tax on 
the peasants, whom he forced to bring forage for 
his horses, and he committed innumerable acts of 
violence.' That measures of this kind crushed 
resistance, and disposed the people to obey the will 
of their conqueror, is not surprising : but so far 
there is not a word to show that any section of the 
Egyptian nation viewed the advent of the Muslims 
with any other feeling than terror. 

Although Athrlb and Mantif had fallen, the town 
of Nikiou, which lay on the western branch of the 

^ c. cxiii. p. 559. Zotenberg's rendering, ' C'est alors que Ton 
commen9a a preter aide aux Musulmans/ goes beyond the original, 
which merely says ' And they began to help the Muslims.' I think 
that the help was for a specific purpose, not general. 



Battle of Heliopolis 237 

Nile, was too strongly fortified to be taken without 
a regular siege, for which neither time nor means 
were available. It remained therefore as a link 
between Babylon and Alexandria. But the mere 
report of the Muslim victories determined the 
Roman chiefs who were there to retire on the 
capital. They left, however, Domentianus with 
a small garrison, and sent to Dares at Samanud 
the order to defend the country between the two 
branches of the Nile. But the alarm now became 
a panic, which spread through every town of Egypt. 
From all parts the inhabitants streamed towards 
Alexandria, abandoning lands and houses, goods 
and chattels, cattle and crops. A new reign of 
terror had begun for the people who had been 
scourged by ten years of persecution under Cyrus, 
Al Mukaukas. 

But 'Amr was not prepared to follow the flying 
crowds northwards. The Nile, now rising fast as 
August waned, was making the country impassable : 
besides he had no wish to leave in his rear the 
powerful fortress of Babylon unmasked, while to 
mask it such a number of troops were needed as 
would leave him no army capable of conquering 
Alexandria. His next step therefore must be the 
reduction of Babylon. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE FORTRESS OF BABYLON 

Present state of the fortress. Its position and description. 
Towers and gates. The Iron Gate. Island of Raudah. Origin 
of the fortress and of its name. Churches within it. 

Up to nearly the beginning of the twentieth 
century enough of the ancient fortress still stood 
to give a clear idea of its structure and its import- 
ance. These remains owed their preservation 
entirely to the Copts, whose churches had clustered 
within the walls from the very beginnings of Chris- 
tianity, and had found in them a sure bulwark in 
times of persecution. The walls were Coptic 
property, save where the Melkite church of St. George 
or the Jewish synagogue claimed a small section of 
them ; and the Muslims seem never to have shown 
any care to preserve a monument which played so 
large a part in the conquest, and about which so 
much is written in the pages of their own historians. 

But with the British occupation came a sense 
of security which has led to the most deplorable 
destruction. The need of a fortified enclosure 
having vanished, Copts, Greeks, and Jews vied 
together in demolishing the walls, wherever their 
fancy suggested a new entrance or a new building. 
It is the simple truth that in the last eighteen years 
more havoc has been wrought upon the Roman 
fortress than in the previous eighteen centuries. 

At last, when nearly all the mischief was done, 
the government interfered, and all that now remains 
is placed under government protection. But that is 
little enough. 



Fortress of Babylon 239 

The ruined castle lies in the region now miscalled 
Old Cairo. Three sides of the enclosure were 
almost uninjured a few years ago ; but now of 
two sides only some fragments remain, while the 
third is sadly mutilated. The walls were about 
eight feet in thickness, built of brick and stone 
courses alternating, and they seem to have formed 
an irregular quadrilateral, the full extent of which 
cannot be known until the foundations of the fourth 
or vanished side are rediscovered. On the south 
and on the eastern side of the fortress the line of 
walls was broken out by four projecting bastions 
at somewhat uneven intervals. Three of the four 
bastions on the south were recently visible : now 
one has been completely destroyed, but between 
the other two may be seen the magnificent ancient 
gateway, which has been excavated from the encum- 
bering rubbish mounds to a depth of some thirty 
feet^. On the western side of the fort there was 
no bastion — a fact which one may explain by 
remembering that when the fort was built, and 
even at the time of the conquest, the Nile flowed 
under the wall, so that boats moored beneath it. 
Another gate, opening on to the river, probably lay 
between the two enormous round towers, which 
were little injured before the recent changes. Now 
one of them is all but demolished, the other has 
been entirely obliterated from view by being en- 
closed and encased in a rectangular block of modern 
Arab construction. Each tower was circular on 
plan, upwards of 100 feet in diameter, and contained 
an inner circle of wall : radiating walls divided the 

' Historians and antiquarians alike owe a great debt of gratitude 
to Max Hertz Bey for his able work in saving 'this gateway and 
showing it to the light. 



240 Arab Conquest of Egypt 

space between the two concentric circles into eight 
compartments, one of which was occupied by a stone 
staircase leading to the top of the building. The 
ordinary walls of the fortress were some sixty feet 
high, as IS proved by recent excavations, although 
the whole fortress is now buried to a depth of thirty 
feet by the accumulations of ages. But the towers 
rose higher still, and from their top opened an 
immense view embracing the Mukattam Hills on 
the east, long reaches of the Nile to north and 
south, Jizah, the Pyramids, and the Libyan desert 
on the west. And at the time of the conquest, 
before Cairo was built, the field of vision must have 
reached as far as Heliopolis^. 

The two towers were joined by a curtain wall, 
which was pierced by the gate above mentioned. 
But it was not this gate, all trace of which is 
destroyed or buried, but the southern gate now 
opened out to view, which the Arab writers dwell 
upon and associate with the Mukaukas. This is 
no longer doubtful. For the recent excavations 
have disclosed one very curious result : they show 
that either the Nile itself or a short inlet from it 
came right up to the main southern gate of the 
fortress (the ' western ' gate of the Arab writers 2), 
and to the quay at which the Roman boats moored. 
The quay is graduated with steps to suit the 
changing level of the Nile : but its existence is a 

^ The present writer has verified this. A full account of the 
towers is given in Ancient Coptic Churches. The plan showing 
such part of the enclosure as existed just before the British 
occupation of Egypt is here reproduced with slight changes. 

^ Neither ' southern ' nor * western ' is strictly accurate according 
to the points of the compass ; but the side of the fortress towards 
Cairo is more naturally called the northern, and that towards 
Hulwan the southern side. 



7Vl. 



To face: page 2 40. 



ROMAN Fortress of Babylon 

(Kasr-Ash-Shama) 



y»»ti. 



-n^ 



Probable s/^e 
of Roman Gateway ______ 




bts?Ure 6 SCccnfora ZZH- 



Oxfor-A. 



..,j 






M 









Fortress of Babylon 241 

singular confirmation of the minute accuracy with 
which facts are sometimes recorded by the Arab 
historians. Possibly the same arrangement existed 
at the gate between the round towers towards the 
Isle of Raudah. But unquestionably it was this 
southern gate — the gate of Al Mu allakah — which 
was the Iron Gate of Arab story. This is proved 
first by the discovery of the quay : next by the fact 
that the gateway now standing still shows deep 
chases cut in the masonry for the portcullis or drop- 
gate, which was either made of iron or plated with 
iron : and lastly by the fact that Makrizi ^ expressly 
identifies the Iron Gate with the 'western' gate 
(which I call the southern), while his contemporary 
Ibn Dukmak ^ identifies the * western ' orate with the 

o 

gate which is under the church of Al Mu allakah. 

It is curious in this connexion to note that even 
as late as the year 1400 a.d. this Iron Gate, marked 
by the ancient quay, was used as the ordinary 
entrance to the fortress. Just outside stood the 

... •* Khitat, i. p. 286. 

^ Pt. iv. pp. 25-6. The writer gives no description of the fortress, 
but names the gates, streets, mosques, and churches in it. I give 
an extract from this important passage : ' Road ofAl Mu* allakah. 
This is the road which passes underneath the church of that name. 
It is the gate of the fortress, by which the whole of the Castle of 
the Romans called Kasr ash Shama' is entered from the Great 
Market. Road of the Stone. This is entered from the guard-house of 
Al Binanah, and by that you pass into the fortress, of which it forms 
the (north-)eastern gate, the last named being the (south-)western 
gate. The other gates will be mentioned below, if God will. Road 
of Mahatt al Karh. This is entered from the Fish-Market and 
the Meat-Market. This is the north(-westem) gate of the fortress 
. . . and it is the last of the well-known gates of the castle.' What 
I have called the southern gate under Al Mu'allakah is called by 
Ibn Dukmak, with equal correctness but less convenience, the 
western gate : see p. 240, n. 2 supra. See also Ibn Dukmak, 
pp. 15, 16, 30, 33, 49, 81, 103-4, 107-8. 

BUTLER R 



242 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Great Market, as It was called, and from this the 
main road passed through the gateway under the 
church of Al Mu allakah, and crossing the enclosure 
issued out of the walls again by a gate on the 
northern side towards the mosque of *Amr. On 
this side also was the ' guard-house of Binanah,' 
possibly the detached Roman building of which 
a fragment still remains. Although Ibn Dukmak's 
language implies the existence of several other 
gates, only one more is mentioned — that upon the 
western side — which may be the gate between 
the towers. The western walls, then, were washed 
by the Nile, and boats came up also to the Iron 
Gate. (At the present day the Nile has retreated 
far from the ramparts, and the level of the soil has 
risen so high all round the fortress that the walls 
lie buried to half their original height. This under- 
ground portion at least of the ancient circuit has 
escaped the hand of the destroyer, and it is to be 
hoped that some day it may see the light again. 

The island of Raudah itself was strongly fortified 
at this epoch; and by its commanding position in 
mid channel of the Nile it added immensely to 
the military value of Babylon. Ibn Dukmak^ 
seems to say that the Arabs attacked the Island 
during the investment of Babylon, and that when 
the Romans retreated, *Amr threw down part of 
the island walls and towers, which remained in 
a dismantled state till Ibn Tl!ilun rebuilt them in 
the year %']6, for the purpose of guarding there his 
treasure and his seraglio. The island from another 

^ Pt. iv. p. 109. See also Cairo Fifty Years Ago (E. W. Lane, 
p. 132: London, 1896), where the writer mentions remains of a 
massive wall with round towers of Roman work as visible in his day 
on the island. 



Fortress of Babylon 243 

use was called also Arsenal Island by the Arabs in 
later ages. The Nilometer at the south end of the 
island was built in the year 716 a.d. in replacement 
of an earlier monument of the kind, which was inside 
the fortress of Babylon. 

t-;At^the time of the conquest the whole region 
eastward of the fortress was an open cultivated 
plain. Northward spread gardens and vineyards, 
while all the region between the vineyards and the 
mountains as far as the present mosque of Tulun 
and Al Kabsh was dotted over with churches and 
convents, some few of which remain to this day, 
both within and without the walls of Cairo, though 
the greater number were destroyed in the fourteenth 

century by Al Malik an Nasir ibn Kalaun^ 

As regards the origin of the fortress, the con- 
jecture which I ventured to make 2, that it was built 
by Trajan c. 100 a. d., has been amply confirmed 
by the since-published work of John of Nikiou. He 
relates that, in consequence of a Jewish rebellion at 
Alexandria, Trajan first sent Marcius Turbo with 
a large army, and then * himself came to Egypt and 
there built a fortress with a powerful and impregnable 
citadel, and he brought there abundance of water ^.' 
This last expression may refer to the wells sunk 
below the round towers and in other parts of the 
fortress. John goes on to say that the original 

*■ The whole of this paragraph is taken from Makrtzi, Khitaty 
vol. i. p. 286. He also says, * The fort overlooked the Nile and 
boats came up to the western gate, called the Iron Gate. . . . The 
waters of the Nile have retreated westward since that time.' Ab^ 
Salih mentions many churches in this region which long survived 
the conquest. Yet he alleges that *Amr destroyed a large number 
of churches here (p. 133). 

* Ancient Coptic Churches^ vol. i. p. 178. 

' p. 413. 

R 2 



244 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

foundations of the fortress were laid by Nebuchad- 
nezzar, who gave it the name of Babylon, his own 
capital, at the time of his Invasion of Egypt, and 
that upon these Trajan raised the circuit walls and 
otherwise enlarged the buildings \ All, however, 
that stands above ground now is undoubtedly Roman, 
nor is it likely that Trajan followed the lines of any 
previous construction upon that spot. 

On the other hand, (jjie existence of an earlier 
fortress in the vicinity is certain. Strabo ^, who 
visited Egypt about 130 years before Trajan, 
mentions a strong fort standing on a rocky ridge, 
and traces the name to some Babylonian exiles who 
settled there. Dlodorus^ recounts that some captives 
brought by Sesostrls from Babylon established them- 
selves In a castle which they called after their mother 
city. Josephus* thinks the castle was built during 
the Persian conquest under Cambyses. Finally, 
Eutychlus ^ gives Akhus, i. e. Artaxerxes Ochus, as 
the builder of the fortress. It may then be taken 
for granted that near the present site there was 
a stronghold called Babylon for many centuries 

^ Curiously enough, Makrizt gives much the same tradition ; but 
he says that the fortress was ^destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and 
afterwards rebuilt by a Roman governor, Arjalis, son of Makratis, 
on its original foundations ' {Khitat, vol. i. p. 287). Archelaus, 
son of Mercatus (for this seems the Roman name denoted by the 
Arabic), may possibly be the name of Trajan's prefect or of the 
architect. 

"^ Geog. lib. xvii. c. i, § 35. 

^ Diodorus Siculus, Hist. lib. i. c. 56. 3. 

* Ant.Jud. ii. 15. 

^ See Abu Salih, p. 177, n. 3, where Eutychius' words are quoted. 
Vansleb in 1672 saw the ruins of a once magnificent Persian fire- 
temple, said by tradition to have been built by Artaxerxes Ochus 
{Nouvelle Relation d'un Voyage /ait en ^gypte, p. 240). The ruins 
were apparently inside Kasr ash Shama*. 



Fortress of Babylon 245 

before the days of Trajan 1: but I have shown 
elsewhere^ that the original' castle stood rather to 
the south on the rocky ridge (which is still clearly 
visible), as required by Strabo's description. At the 
time of *Amr s invasion this ridge and the adjacent 
locality were probably occupied by the town of 
Misr, which spread as far as the Roman fortress, 
if not further, to the north. The fortress, however, 
was surrounded by a moat, which Al Mukaukas, or 
Cyrus, had lately cleared out and furnished with 
drawbridges ^. It is probable too that in the town 
of Misr many ancient Egyptian buildings were still 
standing, as excavations are constantly yielding 
large stones covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions^ 
The name Babylon has caused much confusion 
among Arab writers. It lingers on to-day not as 
the name of the fortress, which is called Kasr ash 
Shama , Castle of the Torch or Beacon, but in con- 
nexion with a little convent a short distance to the 
south, which is still called Dair Bablun. At the 
time of the conquest the fortress was called in 
Coptic ' Babylon an Khemi ' or ' Babylon of Egypt ^' 
The name lent itself easily to misconstruction in 
Arabic, as the first syllable means ' gate ' in that 

^ Ancient Coptic Churches ^ vol. i. pp. 172-5. 

"^ Severus mentions moats as amongst the works of Cyrus, and 
Abu '1 Mahasin says, ' The Romans had dug a moat round the 
fortress, with gates,' i. e. drawbridges crossing to the gates. Abii 
Salih (p. 73) also says, ' The people of Fustat dug a moat against 
the Arabs.' 

' iie.A-!r\on or id^fLTrXwri np(^HjuLi or hkhjulh : see Champollion, 
V Egypte sous les Pharaons, t. ii. p. 34. There is no evidence at 
all to support his conjecture that the form &diiH\ was ever in use 
in Egypt ; neither Coptic nor Arabic writers recognize such a form. 
But x"-**-* ^s identified with KeujpwjuLi in a MS. given by Zoega, 
Cat, Codd. Copt, p. 88. 



246 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

language, and the remainder suggests a genitive 
case, as we have already seen\ How the name 
Kasr ash Shama' arose is not so easy to discover. 
It may well be that ' Shama' ' is a mere echo of the 
Coptic ' Kheml.' On the other hand, there Is a very 
distinct tradition that a fire-temple was built in con- 
nexion with the old Babylonian castle, and also that 
a similar temple was erected on one of the Roman 
towers, at least during the Persian occupation, in 
the seventh century. We find even mention of a 
Kubbat ad Dukhan — Dome or Temple of Smoke — 
in the Arabic writer Ydkut^. But considering the 
importance of the towers as signal-stations in time 
of war, it is easy to imagine that upon one or both 
of them arrangements were made to light beacon- 
fires, and that from this fact arose the name Kasr 
ash Shama*^ It is, however, curious to remark 
that, however ill the Arabs understood the name of 
the fortress, yet among European writers in the 
Middle Ages it was * Babylon ' and not ' Misr ' which 
survived as the name of the place ; and the title was 
even transferred after the building of Cairo to that 
city, so that its ruler was spoken of as Soldan of 
Babylon*. 

^ See above, p. 232 n. 

^ On the other hand, the same Yakut seems to have ill under- 
stood the name, for he speaks of a * fortress named Kasr al Yun or 
Kasr ash Sham or Kasr ash Shama" (vol. iv. p. 551). 

^ Wakidi is quoted by Makrizi as saying that a torch was lighted 
on the fort upon the first day of every month, when the sun entered 
a new constellation of the Zodiac ; and that the fortress was founded 
by one of the Pharaohs called Ar Riyan. This is in Wakidi's usual 
romantic vein. 

* See for example Marino Sanuto and the other authors bound 
together in vol. 29 of the Palestine Pilgrims Text Society's publica- 
tions. 



Fortress of Babylon 247 

One word more. Though little is told of the 
buildings which stood in the interior of the fortress 
when 'Amr pitched bis camp against it, we know that 
it contained a Kilometer, of which traces remained 
in the days of Makrizi \ We know also that some 
at least of the churches which were frequented by 
the Roman garrison, such as the cathedral church 
of Abu Sargah and possibly Al Mu allakah, may be 
seen at the present day after the lapse of nearly 
thirteen centuries 2. 

^ Of the Dair al Banat in Kasr ash Shama' he says, 'Here 
before Islam was the Nilometer, of which there are traces to this 
day' (Khitat, quoted in Abu Salih, App., p. 325). 

^ There seems no reason for doubt in the case of Abu Sargah, 
although when I wrote Coptic Churches I did not venture to assign 
so high an antiquity to any of these buildings. Abfi Sargah is 
mentioned c. 690, in Am^lineau's Vie du Patriarche Isaac, p. 46. 
We know also from the fragment of the Life of Benjamin that there 
was at the conquest a bishop of the castle of Babylon as well as 
a bishop of Hulwan — a singular proof of the number of churches 
in this region. On the whole subject of the fortress, see Am^Hneau, 
Geog. Copie, pp. 75 seq. ; Quatrembre, Mem, Geog. et Hist. t. i. 
pp. 45 seq. and 71 seq.; Hamaker's Futuh Misr by Wakid!, 
n. pp. 90 seq., and text p. 41 ; also n. p. no and text p. 60, where 
Al Mu'allakah is stated to have been redeemed by the Copts by 
purchase from *Amr, and to have borne a tablet commemorating 
the fact. On the other hand, though the church existed, one may 
qu^tion whether it occupied its present position across and over 
the Roman gateway. The exterior walls are certainly non-Roman, 
and the church rests partly on walls so constructed as to render 
the use of the gate impossible, and therefore later than the 
conquest. Wakidl is mistaken in saying that Dair Bults is the 
same as Kasr ash Shama' and contains Al Mu'allakah. Dair Bulis, 
as he calls it, must be that little convent outside the fortress 
called Dair Bulus, or the Convent of St. Paul, standing in a hollow 
among the rubbish-mounds south of the fortress. A good illustra- 
tion of the southern gateway, as it was, may be found in R. Hay's 
Illustrations of Cairo (London, 1840, fol.), but I know of no plan 
of the building as it originally stood save Pococke's, which is 



248 



The Arab Conquest of Egypt 



most inaccurate. The plans under preparation by the Committee 
for the Conservation of Arab Monuments will furnish a most 
valuable record at least of the Roman gateway. 

The very interesting Jewish synagogue, which was a Christian 
church dating from before the conquest, has recently been de- 
molished by the Jews to make room for a new place of worship. 
The Jews have also thrown down a large section of the wall. 



Plan 




Island of Raudah at the Conquest. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
SIEGE AND SURRENDER OF BABYLON 

Position of the Copts. Cyrus the Mukaukas beleaguered in the 
fortress. Weakness or treachery of Cyrus. He crosses to Raudah 
and makes overtures to *Amr. Roman impressions of the Arabs. 
'Ubddah, 'Amr's envoy, comes to Raudah to negotiate. The 
Arab terms, and their refusal by the Romans. More fighting, 
followed by a treaty, which Cyrus refers to the Emperor. Recall, 
disgrace, and exile of Cyrus. Treaty rejected by Heraclius and 
siege resumed. Fall of the Nile. Campaign in the Delta. Death 
of Heraclius. The fortress scaled by Zubair. Surrender of the 
garrison under treaty. Roman barbarity upon the Copts. 

With the beginning of September *Amr had not 
only returned to Babylon, but had made all his dis- 
positions for a regular blockade of the fortress. Its 
massive walls and lofty towers encircled by the Nile 
— for the moat was now full of water — promised 
a long defiance to enemies ignorant of engineering 
and unprovided with siege equipment. Some few 
engines of war had been captured in the Fayum and 
in Trajan's citadel at Manuf, but the Arabs had no 
skill to work them or to keep them in repair, and 
they did but little damage to the garrison ^ though 
the ridge some 200 yards south of the fortress offered 
an admirable vantage-ground for the besiegers' 
batteries. 

The fortress stood, as we have seen, on the edge 
of the river, its long line of western wall awash with 
the flood, while the Iron Gate opened on the moat 
or dock on the south side. Opposite lay the island 

* One or two Arab writers speak of 'Amr setting up his manga- 
nika against the fortress, but there is no word to suggest that they 
proved of any advantage to the besiegers. 



250 The Arab Conquest of Egypt , 

of Raudah, the southern end of which in times of 
peace at any rate was connected with the fortress 
by a bridge of boats. Whether the bridge was left 
standing in war is doubtful ; but it is certain that 
pontoons were kept moored by the Iron Gate in 
a positian of security, and that boats readily passed 
from the fort to the island. In spite of his victory 
*Amr was not yet able to dominate the river. Its 
swelling tide would have baffled more skilful navi- 
gators than the Arabs ; and if he had risked an 
attack from that side, his boats would have been 
swept away by the flood or sunk by the defenders* 
catapults. 

All the Arab writers are agreed that when the 
siege began, the Mukaukas himself (or the Patriarch 
Cyrus) was within the walls of Babylon ^ Theodore 
too had been there before the battle of Heliopolis, 
though his actual presence at that battle is not 
recorded : but when the Roman forces were defeated, 
he seems to have joined the fugitives and hastened 
to Alexandria. Cyrus therefore, as Heraclius* Vice- 
roy, was the real commander in Babylon, although 
the general in charge of the garrison bore another 
name which the Arabs give as Al 'Araj ^, and which 

^ Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, Eutychius, Yakut, Makrizi, Abu '1 Mahasin, 
&c. are in harmony on the presence, though of course they differ 
on the personality, of the Mukaukas. 

^ See the Appendix C on Al Mukaukas. The confusion 
on the subject of the commander is very great. Tabari, for 
example, who actually puts the capitulation of Alexandria before 
the siege of Misr or Babylon, alleges that ' Al Mukaukas, prince of 
the Copts, had named Ibn Maryam as commander of the fortress.' 
This is very curious, for Al Mukaukas, we know, was Cyrus, the 
bitter enemy and persecutor of the Copts, while Ibn Maryam 
represents, as I have shown, the Coptic Patriarch who was hiding 
in Upper Egypt. All that Tabari's sentence can mean is this — that 



I 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 251 

is probably a corruption of * George,' though this 
George must be a different person from his name- 
sake the Prefect, whom 'Amr forced to bridge the 
canal at Kaliub. Another general who remained 
through the siege was Eudocianus, elder brother 
of Domentianus \ The forces under George may 
have amounted to 5,000 or 6,000 men — hardly more 
— but the garrison was amply provided with food 
and warlike stores of all kinds. The civil population 
had been swollen by a number of refugees from the 
adjacent city of Misr and the convents round, but it 
is probable that most of these were sent away by 
river, so as to leave the garrison more freedom. 
All the churches within the walls were now, it must 
be remembered, in possession of clergy professing 
Chalcedonian or Melkite opinions, and no other 
opinion was tolerated. Cyrus had not changed his 
character as arch-enemy of the Coptic faith — a 
character which he maintained to the end ; and his 

a Patriarch was virtual commander. That Patriarch is unquestion- 
ably Cyrus. This fact disposes of Eutychius' statement that Al 
Mukaukas 'had kept back the revenues of Egypt ever since 
Chosroes had been beleaguering Constantinople/ Cyrus did not 
even come to Egypt until three years after the final defeat of the 
Persians and death of Chosroes. I should hardly notice this par- 
ticular misstatement of Eutychius but that it has been accepted 
as true by modern historians. Thus Gibbon (c. li) makes Al 
Mukaukas ' a rich and noble Egyptian ' who ' during the Persian 
wars had aspired to independence,' and adds that ' the abuse of his 
trust exposed him to the resentment of Heraclius.' So Prof. Bury 
makes Al Mukaukas * a Copt who administered Egypt for the 
Persian king' [Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 214), and who sub- 
sequently came to terms with 'Amr. See also p. 208, n. 2 supra, 
where I have quoted a re^cent writer as speaking of ' the Patriarch 
Cyrus, in concert with Mukaukas.' The fact is that the discovery 
of the true identity of Al Mukaukas profoundly modifies the history 
of this period. 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 570. 



252 The Arab Conqviest of Egypt 

presence in the fort Is the strongest proof, if proof 
were needed, that the only Copts there remaining 
were those who had been driven by persecution to 
renounce their creed. Indeed even of those, some, 
whose sincerity was doubted, were thrown into 
prison, where, as we shall see, they were treated 
with great barbarity. 

It is therefore a mere perversion of history to 
speak, as many Arab writers do, of the Copts as the 
defenders or the dominant party within the fortress. 
The Copts had simply no existence as a belligerent 
body. Even their religious unity had been shattered 
by the ten years persecution. In the mountains 
and caves and deserts and in fortified monasteries 
of Upper Egypt there were still Copts and Coptic 
communities ; but at Babylon, in the Delta, and at 
Alexandria, all the Copts had been forced within 
the pale of the established Church, where their 
secret disloyalty was powerless. Arab historians, 
writing some centuries after the conquest, naturally 
speak of Egyptian armies and Egyptian leaders 
without distinction of Roman or Copt, and the con- 
sequent mistakes and misunderstandings are legion : 
but it cannot be too clearly understood that at this 
time there was no such thing as a Coptic party in 
the field. The Copts were wholly out of action- 
crushed by Cyrus; and it is untrue to represent 
them as capable of combining among themselves or 
of fighting or treating with the Arabs. 

But while the heart of Cyrus was still hardened 
against the Copts, he must have felt how ill he had 
prepared the country to resist a powerful enemy. 
His reign of violence had brought about a false 
semblance of religious unity, but it had torn asunder 
every shred of sympathy between governors and 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 253 

governed. At the best he could only expect that 
the Copts should watch in sullen aloofness the 
struggle between two alien and equally detested 
powers. All hope of saving Egypt by force of arms 
was ebbing away : was this the result on which he 
had calculated ? 

For the moment Al Mukaukas was secure in an 
almost impregnable castle, girdled by the waters of 
the Nile. The Roman catapults were more than a 
match for the Muslim bolts and arrows that volleyed 
across the moat. But as time wore on, the water in 
the moat was certain to sink, and already the fierce 
pertinacity of the assailants was causing some mis- 
giving in the fortress and some division of opinion. 
It was about a month after the siege had begun, i. e. 
at the beginning of October, 640, that Cyrus sum- 
moned those officers of the garrison whom he trusted, 
together with the Melkite bishop of Babylon, to a 
secret council of war, and set before them his views. 
The war had gone against them. Their main army 
had been destroyed, and they were now beleaguered 
by a superior force of men, whose fighting capacity 
was most formidable. For some months at any rate 
there was no chance of any relieving army taking 
the field. The fortress might hold out, no doubt;, 
but even so, were the chances of war in their favour ? 
If not, would it not be better to buy off the enemy — 
to pay him a certain sum to clear out of the country ? 
If such a peace could be purchased — if payment of 
an indemnity would secure the retirement of the 
Arabs — would not Egypt be saved for the Empire? 
Arguments like these, expanded and fired by the 
eloquence of which Cyrus undoubtedly was master, 
prevailed with the council, and it was resolved if 
possible to carry out the plan. But it was essential 



254 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

not to alarm the garrison and the advocates of war 
to the death : so it was decided that Cyrus and his 
confederates should take boats by night and steal 
across to the island of Raudah, whence they could 
open negotiations with the Arab leader in complete 
tranquillity ^ 

The plan was carried out with the utmost secrecy. 
The Iron Gate on the Nile was opened ; and taking 
the boats there moored, the party crossed to the 
island, landing at the spot where afterwards the 
arsenal was erected. George, the commander of 
the fortress, was probably in the plot, but he remained 
within the walls to silence any rumours of treachery 
that might arise when the departure of Cyrus was 
discovered ^. Cyrus removed all the pontoons, so 

^ It is needless to dwell on the reasons for rejecting the absurd 
story of Eutychius that Al Mukaukas, being a Copt in sympathies, 
beguiled the Roman garrison out of the fortress in order to betray 
it to 'Amr in the Coptic interest. It would be an endless task to 
criticize here the various versions of the incident in the text ; but 
two facts seem to stand out in most of the versions. These are, 
(i) that a Patriarch or bishop opened negotiations, and (2) that 
the Mukaukas retired to Raudah at the time of high Nile. The 
intervention of the bishop is put by different authorities at different 
times, and the retirement to Raudah is variously given as occurring 
one month after the commencement of the siege and as following 
the capture of the fortress. But even those authorities, like Yakut 
and Suyuti, who take the latter view, make the capture occur 
at high Nile. This of course is wrong ; the date of the capture is 
fixed irrevocably to the beginning of April — the time when the Nile 
is at its lowest ; but the fact that negptiations took place at flood- 
time is just one of those undesigned coincidences of tradition which 
may be safely trusted. Its accuracy is further strengthened by the 
independent tradition which places the time one month after the . 
beginning of the siege. Now the siege began about the end of 
August, and a month later— about the end of September — the Nile 
is in fact at its highest. Thus the chronology of the incident is 
somewhat strongly established. 

^ Makrizi says that opinions differ whether George accompanied 



Stege and Surrender of Babylon 255 

that, in case a panic seized the garrison, they would 
be unable to leave the fortress ; and as soon as he 
had secured his position on the island \ he sent 
envoys to *Amr, among them being the bishop of 
Babylon. They were courteously received, and 
delivered their message. ' You and your army,' 
they said, * have invaded our country, and seem bent 
on fighting us. Your stay in the land is long, no 
doubt : but you are a small force, far outnumbered 
by the Romans, who are well-equipped and well- 
armed. Now too you are surrounded by the waters 
of the Nile, and are in fact captives in our hand. 
It would be well for you therefore to send envoys 
with any proposals you wish to make for an agree- 
ment, before the Romans overwhelm you. Then it 
will be too late, and you will regret your error ^.^ 

the Mukaukas or not. Suyfiti says that at first he stayed behind, 
but soon joined the Mukaukas. 

\ It must be remembered that at this time the channel on the 
eastern side of the island, i. e. between the island and the fortress, was 
as wide as that on the western side. This is clear from the Sefer 
Nameh, which expressly states that such was the case even 400 years 
later (1047 a. d.), though it adds that the current on the eastern 
side was sluggish, showing that the channel had silted up. Now 
the eastern channel is extremely narrow, and the Nile flows almost 
entirely on the west. The head of the island or south end remains 
in its original position, as it has always been strongly walled and 
fortified against the action of the river. For the Sefer Nameh, see 
Relation du Voyage de Ndsiri Khusrau, p. 153. 

2 This account is from Makrizt, whose detail I shall on the 
whole follow. He, together with Abii '1 Mahasin and Suyuti, 
gives two separate traditions of the conference. The first is that 
*Amr entered the fortress to parley, and that a plot was laid to 
treacherously assassinate him as he was leaving. This story I un- 
hesitatingly reject as pure fiction, noting, however, that the same 
story is told by Eutychius with reference to Gazah in Palestine 
(Hamaker's Futuh Misr, p. 84 of notes). The second tradition 
is that which I have embodied in the text. It may, how- 



256 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

No immediate answer was given, but the envoys 
were detained in the Arab camp for two days, during 
which time they were allowed to go about freely and 
make their own observations on the life and character 
of the Muslims. *Amr then dismissed them with 
the usual offer of terms. * Only one of three courses 
is open to you ; (i) Islam with brotherhood and 
equality ; (2) payment of tribute, and protection 
with an inferior status ; (3) war till God decides 
between us.' 

Cyrus was relieved by the return of the envoys. 
He had been anxiously asking whether it was lawful 
under the Muslim religion to kill ambassadors. But 
the simplicity and the enthusiasm of the Arabs had 
deeply impressed the Roman messengers. 'We 
have seen,' they reported, 'a people who prefer 
death to life and humility to pride. They sit in 
the dust, and they take their meals on horseback. 
Their commander is one of themselves : there is no 
distinction of rank among them. They have fixed 
hours of prayer at which all pray, first washing their 
hands and feet, and they pray with reverence.' And 
despite the harsh precision of the terms offered, 
Cyrus thought it better to treat now, while the Arab 
forces were hemmed in by the floods, rather than 
await the time when they could move freely through 
the country. He therefore sent back to *Amr the 
request that special envoys might be empowered 
to discuss terms for agreement. *Amr accordingly 
deputed ten of his officers, headed by a powerful 

ever, be remarked that even according to the first tradition the 
negotiations with 'Amr, which are alleged to have taken place 
within the fortress, came to nothing. The two traditions therefore 
agree in this, that the first overtures for peace made by the Romans 
proved abortive. 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 257 

negro called *Ubadah ibn as Samit : but their orders 
were to accept no terms incompatible with one of 
the three defined courses. 

The Arabs were ferried across to Raudah ; but 
when 'Ubadah was ushered into the presence of Al 
Mukaukas, the latter was shocked and exclaimed, 
* Take away that black man : I can have no dis- 
cussion with him.' But the Arabs explained that 
'Ubadah was one of their most trusted and capable 
leaders, and that *Amr had commissioned him person- 
ally to treat with the Romans. To the Archbishop s 
further astonishment, they added that they held 
negroes and white men in equal respect — that they 
judged a man by his character, not his colour. And 
*Ubadah, when bidden to speak gently, so as not to 
frighten the delicate prelate, replied, 'There are a 
thousand blacks, as black as myself, among our 
companions. I and they would be ready each to 
meet and fight a hundred enemies together. We 
live only to fight for God, and to follow His will. 
We care nought for wealth, so long as we have 
wherewithal to stay our hunger and to clothe our 
bodies. This world is nought to us, the next world 
is all.' This profession of piety moved the Arch- 
bishop. * Do you hear this ? ' he said to his com- 
panions ; * I much fear that God has sent these men 
to devastate the world.' Then, turning to 'Ubadah, 
he remarked, * I have listened, good sir, to your 
account of yourself and your comrades, and I under- 
stand why your arms so far have prevailed. I know 
too that the Romans have failed by caring over- 
much for earthly things. But now they are pre- 
paring to send against you immense numbers of 
well-armed battalions. Resistance will be hopeless. 
But for the sake of peace, we will agree to pay a 



258 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

sum of money at the rate of two dinars a head for 
every man in the Arab army, a hundred dinars for 
your commander, and a thousand for your Caliph, 
on condition that you return to your own country/ 

To this 'Ubadah answered, * Do not deceive your- 
selves. We are not afraid of your numbers. Our 
greatest desire is to meet the Romans in battle. If 
we conquer them, it is well ; if not, then we receive 
the good things of the world to come. Our prayer 
is for martyrdom in the cause of Islam, not for safe 
return to wife and children. Our small numbers 
cause us no fear; for it is written in the Book, 
'' Many a time hath a small company overcome a 
great host, by the will of God." Understand, there- 
fore, that we can accept no terms save one of the 
three conditions which we are ordered by the Caliph 
to offer you.' Cyrus in vain endeavoured to obtain 
terms more In accordance with his proposal; his 
arguments fell on deaf ears ; till at last in answer 
to his final inquiry, 'Ubadah, losing patience, raised 
both his hands above his head and exclaimed ve- 
hemently, * No, by the Lord of heaven and earth 
and all things, you shall have no other terms from 
us. So make your choice.' 

Thereupon Cyrus and his companions held a con- 
sultation. To the first alternative they answered 
uncompromisingly, * We cannot abandon the religion 
of Christ for a religion of which we know nothing.^ 
Thus ruling out the adoption of Islam, there re- 
mained only submission, with payment of tribute, 
or war. They argued that submission to the Muslims 
and payment of tribute would be tantamount to 
slavery : death would be easier. But 'Ubadah 
explained that both their persons and their property 
would be respected; that they would retain full 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 259 

control over their possessions and all existing rights 
of inheritance ; that their churches would be left 
uninjured, and the practice of their religion un- 
molested. So Interpreted, the terms seemed reason- 
able and even generous to the Mukaukas, Cyrus, 
whose courage was sapped by the secret conviction 
that the Muslims were destined to conquer. But 
the Christians were not all prepared to surrender 
their country so tamely as the foreign Archbishop 
of Alexandria. George, the commander of the 
fortress, seems by this time to have joined the 
conference, and it Is certain that violent opposition 
was offered to Cyrus* proposal to capitulate : but 
here, as so often in this history, a veil falls on 
the scene, and one can only conjecture what lies 
behind ^ 

^ The invincible confusion of the Arab writers (on whom we are 
just now totally dependent in the silence of John of Nikiou) is 
nowhere better illustrated than in the close of this incident of the 
conference. Makrizi says that 'Amr's terms were all refused ; that 
the siege was pressed on ; and that the fort was taken, while the 
Nile was still high. Then, however, the Mukaukas * persuaded his 
companions to agree to the terms of the Arabs, and wrote to 'Amr 
that the Romans and Copts had prevented acceptance of the con- 
ditions before, but now they were desirous of paying tribute.' But 
the order of events is plainly wrong here, as the fort held out till 
April. Abu '1 Mahasin has much the same story, but he says that 
Al Mukaukas had promised submission on behalf of the Copts hut 
against their will^ and they refused to ratify the compact. Then 
the siege was resumed and the fort taken with great slaughter — still 
at high Nile. The treaty followed.. Yakut is a litde clearer. 
Referring to the conference with 'Ubadah, he says that 'the Mukaukas 
made a compact with *Amr on behalf of the Romans and Copts, 
subject for the former to the approval of the Emperor, who was at 
once to be communicated with.' He adds that ' the most learned 
of the Egyptians ' in his day ' took the view that the matter was 
not settled before the interview between the Mukaukas and 'Ubadah.' 
Yet even Yakut represents the fortress as captured by storm at 

S 2 



26o The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

It seems, however, that failing agreement upon 
the Muslim proposals, the Roman chiefs asked for 
a month to consider the matter. *Amr answered 
decisively that he would grant only a three days* 
armistice. By this time Cyrus' secret action was 
known to the Roman garrison. His party probably 
returned from Raudah to within the walls of Babylon, 
where the popular feeling set strongly against Cyrus. 
Accordingly the advocates of resistance had an easy 
triumph : the soldiers of the Emperor absolutely 
refused to surrender. Indeed, this decision was 
reached so quickly, that by the time the armistice 
had expired, measures were taken to prepare a 
sudden onslaught upon the besiegers. No answer 

high Nile, and the interview as taking place directly after the 
capture. These stories therefore are all inconsistent with known 
fact in some detail or other. But from them we may gather that 
(i) the interview did take place at high Nile, early in October; (2) it 
resulted in disagreement and a fresh appeal to arms ; (3) the fight 
was disastrous to the Romans, who now changed their mind ; (4) a 
treaty was concluded subject to the Emperor's approval, which was 
to be at once demanded. We know that Heraclius repudiated the 
agreement. This comes out in the Muslim writers, though usually 
in connexion with Alexandria — an entirely wrong place, because 
(i) Heraclius was dead when the treaty of Alexandria was made ; 
and (2) the treaty of Alexandria was made by direct authority of 
the then reigning Emperor. Baladhuri, in his confused summary of 
various traditions, gives one which is correct : for he says that the 
compact made by Al Mukaukas with 'Amr was repudiated by 
Heraclius, who sent an army to Alexandria : the gates were shut, 
and the city prepared for siege. So also through the strange 
distortions of Eutychius' narrative the fact that a treaty between 
'Amr and the Mukaukas was made at Babylon emerges. The 
treaty accoirdingly must be regarded as historical, though the 
precise circumstances attending its conclusion are lost. The 
incident of the attack after the three days' armistice comes from 
Tabart, who, however, errs in company with the Arab writers in 
making no appreciable interval between the armistice and. the final 
surrender of the fortress. 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 261 

was sent to 'Amr; but on the fourth day, when 
the armistice was over, while the Arab commander 
was considering what action to take, the Romans 
sallied out over their drawbridges and fell upon 
the camp of their unsuspecting enemy. The Arabs, 
though completely surprised, flew to arms, and a 
desperate battle ensued. But bravely as the Romans 
fought, their army, which was ere long outnumbered, 
was slowly driven back, and after severe losses made 
good its retreat within the walls. 

Al Mukaukas, whose dark and tortuous mind was 
still haunted by thoughts of surrender, now found 
his opportunity. The army, which had scorned his 
counsel, had trusted to the sword : in the battle 
they had demeaned themselves as Roman soldiers 
should : yet though they had taken the foe at a 
disadvantage, by the sword they had fallen. As 
Viceroy of Egypt, Cyrus could see no prospect of 
driving the invaders out of the country, and this 
fresh failure only confirmed his evil forebodings. 
He found the party of resistance weakened and 
disheartened, and he had little difficulty now in 
securing a gloomy assent to his proposal for re- 
opening negotiations with *Amr. It is somewhat 
surprising to find that the terms offered by *Amr 
remained the same, but there is no reason to think 
that they varied either now or at any later period 
in the war. The alternative chosen by the Romans 
was, of course, subjection and tribute; and this 
arrangement was embodied in a treaty, which was 
concluded on the express condition that it was 
subject to the approval of the Emperor. Cyrus 
undertook to submit the treaty to Heraclius im- 
mediately, and it was agreed that pending ratifica- 
tion there should be no change in the military 



262 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

situation, or at least that the fortress should not 
be surrendered. 

It was at this juncture that Cyrus, Al Mukaukas, 
took his departure from Babylon and hastened down 
the Nile to Alexandria, whence he sent urgent 
dispatches to the Emperor, regretting the action 
which he had been forced to take, and explaining 
the absolute necessity of coming to terms with the 
Arabs. He therefore prayed the Emperor to con- 
firm the agreement for a treaty and so deliver 
Egypt from the miseries of war. Heraclius may 
well have been puzzled by this communication. Did 
the proposed treaty relate to Babylon alone, or did 
it cover the surrender of all Egypt, including Alex- 
andria ? Were the Arabs merely to receive a tribute 
of money and to retire, or were they to remain 
masters of the country ? Was Egypt, in a word, 
to be torn from the Empire and delivered to the 
enemies of Christendom ? For months past the 
Emperor had been reproaching his generals and 
Cyrus, his Viceroy, with their shameful mismanage- 
ment, which had suffered a handful of Saracens to 
plant their standards in Egypt and to defy the 
imperial forces. Now it was proposed either to bribe 
the barbarians to retire, or to yield them possession 
of the whole province, with all its corn and gold. 
What was the meaning of this surrender ? Cyrus 
must come and give an account of his viceroyalty. 

It was probably about the middle of November 
when a peremptory message of recall reached Cyrus. 
Its tone was not reassuring, and his conscience may 
well have quailed as he prepared the account of his 
stewardship for his master. He alone knew how 
far he had betrayed and how far he had followed 
either the letter or the spirit of the Emperor's 



I 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 263 

instructions during the ten years of the Great 
Persecution : but he could not disguise the fact 
that his religious mission had been a disastrous 
failure, while the ruin of his schemes was bringing 
about the political ruin of Egypt. Withal he must 
have been conscious, that however honest his motives 
might be as shaped to himself, yet his easy despair 
of the Roman cause, and his readiness — even anxiety 
— to parley with the enemy, clouded his conduct 
with the suspicion of treachery. Thoughts like 
these must have weighed down his spirit, as he 
reached the Emperor's presence in Constantinople; 
He met with an angry reception. He could only 
admit the truth of the charge that he had agreed 
to pay the gold of Egypt to the Arabs ^ : but 
apparently he thought, or feigned to think, that 
they could still be prevailed upon to quit the 
country, and he urged that the tribute might be 
met by a special tax upon merchandise at Alex- 
andria, so that the imperial revenues would be in 
no way diminished For the rest, he saw no hope. 
The Arabs were not as other men : they had, as 
they said, no earthly wants but bread for sustenance 
and a garment to cover their bodies. They were 
' a people of death,' holding it gain to be killed and 
sent to paradise, whereas the Romans loved the 
things of this life and clung to them. If the Emperor 
saw the Arabs and knew their fighting powers, he 
would be forced to acknowledge that they were 

^ It is this fact which, taken out of its proper setting and 
misconstrued by Theophanes, has given rise to the story of tribute 
paid by Cyrus prior to the Arab conquest in order to purchase 
immunity from invasion. The commission of Manuel to carry on 
the war, which Theophanes assigns to this period, comes in reahty 
much later, long after the death of Heraclius, as will be shown 
towards the close of this volume. 



264 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

invincible. It was therefore better to come to terms 
with *Amr, before the capture of Babylon placed 
Egypt at his mercy. 

Such was the defence of the Viceroy. Nicephorus 
adds that before the recall of Cyrus the Emperor 
had dispatched Marinus to take council with him, 
and to devise with him measures for dealing with 
the Saracen crisis : and that, concurrently with the 
proposal to pay tribute, Cyrus had suggested that 
Eudocia, or another daughter of the Emperor, should 
be given in marriage to *Amr, who would then 
receive baptism and become a Christian. This 
story seems to me extremely improbable — a mere 
wild echo of the arrangement by which Eudocia was 
promised in marriage many years previously to the 
chief of the Khazars. Cyrus can have been under 
no illusion with regard to the uncompromising quality 
of the Muslim religion, and such a conversion of 
'Amr passes all romance. Nor is there the slightest 
warrant for the story in any other chronicle. But 
it needed not this to fire the wrath of Heraclius. 
He asked angrily if ico,ooo Romans were not a 
match for 12,000 Saracens. Al Mukaukas — as we 
may still call Cyrus even in the Byzantine capital — 
was arraigned on a charge of betraying the Empire 
to the Saracens, and being adjudged guilty was 
threatened with death. Heraclius taunted him with 
behaviour worthy of an Egyptian peasant, called him 
an abject coward and a heathen, and delivered him 
over to the city Prefect, at whose hands he suffered 
great indignities ^ ; then he was sent into exile. 

Meanwhile the rejection of the treaty by the 
Roman Emperor must have become known in the 

^ The word used by Nicephorus, at/cto-o/xeVo), seems to mean this 
rather than torture, as interpreted by Le Quien. 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 265 

Arab camp at Babylon before the end of the year 
640. All truce or half-measures were now over, and 
both sides braced themselves afresh for the struggle. 
The Nile was fast falling, and, as it fell, the waters 
in the moat sank lower and lower : with it sank the 
hope, if not the courage, of the defenders. But as 
the receding flood emptied the moat, the Romans 
sought to make good the loss by sprinkling the 
bottom of the ditch with spiked caltrops, which 
they sowed more thickly in front of the gates. 
These tactics the Muslims doubtless met by throw- 
ing down the embankment and endeavouring to 
level an approach. But generally few details of the 
siege operations remain. We read of missiles and 
battering-rams, of sallies and assaults ; but it is 
abundantly clear that the Arabs, owing to their 
want of engineering science, made very slow pro- 
gress towards the reduction of the fortress. It may 
even be doubted whether the blockade, though 
closely set on the landward side, was ever effective 
on the side of the river. But here the Muslims 
seemed to have derived some help from a local 
combination of the Green and Blue factions, prob- 
ably those of the conquered Faytam^. Bands of 
adventurers under Menas, chief of the Greens, and 
Cosmas, son of Samuel, chief of the Blues, were in 
the habit of crossing the river in boats by night 
and raiding the island of Raudah, or falling on any 
Roman vessels passing to the fortress or moored 
at the Iron Gate. These tactics harassed the 
defenders, and partly cancelled their advantage in 
the freedom of the river. 

But even on land the watch was not always well 
kept by the Muslims. One day a small patrol went 
^ John of Nikiou, p. 568. 



266 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

out of the fortress and fell upon Zubair and 'Ubadah 
at the time of their devotions. The Arab chiefs at 
once leapt on their horses, charged, and chased the 
Romans, who, as the enemy were gaining upon 
them, threw off their girdles and ornaments. The 
proffered spoil was neglected,, but the Romans 
managed to secure their retreat within the fortress, 
*Ubadah being slightly wounded by a stone slung 
from the battlements \ Scorning to lift the Roman 
trappings the two Arabs returned to their place and 
finished their prayers, while the Roman soldiers 
came out again and recovered what they had thrown 
away. 

Wakidt gives particulars of another battle. One 
Friday, as the Muslim host were gathering together 
for prayer, *Amr moved among the crowd exhorting 
his men to fight valiantly. A Roman spy watched 
the proceedings and reported them at Babylon. 
After the usual sermon *Amr came down from the 
rude platform on which he had spoken, and while 
he was leading the solemn recital of prayer, a Roman 
force, which had crept up unobserved, suddenly 
swooped on the defenceless Muslims, and caused 
them some loss^. 

But as the winter waned, sallies and combats 
without the walls grew rarer, assaults upon them 
fiercer and more frequent. The Romans, worn out 
by watching and fighting, found their defences 
harder to guard. Although the ramparts were little 

^ This account, taken from Abfl '1 Mahasin, is much more 
probable than that of Makrizi, who says that when the Roman 
soldiers re-entered the fort, 'Ubadah threw stones over the walls and 
went away ! 

^ Ed. Hamaker, p. 104, notes. On p. 55 of text are the names 
of several Muslims slain in the siege. 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 267 

weakened, if at all, the numbers within were thinned 
by the plague ^ which now was making havoc in the 
garrison : while the sentinels upon the round towers 
scanned the horizon in vain for the flash of Roman 
spear and cuirass beyond the white domes of the 
convents which dotted the plain northwards. For 
now was the time, when the floods were down, if 
ever a relieving army was to save Babylon. 

Indeed it was probably at this period of the war 
that news reached *Amr of an army assembling 
under Theodore in the country between the two 
branches of the Nile. 'Amr did not wait to be 
attacked ; but leaving a strong enough force to 
maintain the investment of Babylon, he moved up 
the Damietta branch, crossed the river at Athrib, and 
struck northwards in the direction of Samanud. 
Theodore dispatched two of his generals to hold 
that city, and their column effected a junction with 
a body of local militia. These, however, refused 
to follow the Roman standards or to fight the Arabs. 
Nevertheless battle was given in the region of 
Samanud, with somewhat disastrous results for the 
Muslim force and for some renegade Christians who 
had adopted Islam and enrolled under its banners. 
Great numbers of Muslims and their allies perished, 
and *Amr found that he could inflict no serious 
mischief on the northern towns, which were protected 
against cavalry by moats and canals. He therefore 
fell back to Blaslr and fortified it : the defences of 
Mantaf and Athrib were also repaired, and garrisons 
were left within them. But if Theodore won some 

^ It is Yakut who mentions the plague, and the fact may be 
accepted, although coupled with the absurd statement that 12,300 
persons within the fortress were slain by the arrows of the 
Muslims. 



268 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

advantage in this brief campaign, he was unable to 
follow it up, and he never succeeded in placing a 
relieving force anywhere near beleaguered Babylon ^, 
to which place 'Amr now returned. 

The inaction of Theodore may have been partly 
due to treachery and desertion on the Roman side. 
How far the local militia was composed of Copts 
and how far of Roman troops is not known : but 
during the centuries of Roman occupation there 
must have been a mingling of blood and of senti- 
ment which is too often forgotten by historians. 
The Copts had good reason to hate the Empire ; 
and on some of the Romans, even apart from 
religious motives, their loyalty sat so lightly that 
it was shaken off by the passion or self-interest of 
the moment. Two cases of the kind are recorded 
in connexion with this episode. A general named 
Kaladji had gone over to the Muslims, but Theo- 
dore contrived to see him, and used the strongest 
arguments to secure his return. Kaladjt had left 
hostages in the shape of his wife and his mother 
in Alexandria, and he agreed to purchase their 
safety and his own pardon from Theodore for a 
large sum of money. Accordingly he stole away 

^ This episode is not free from doubt. It is given in John of 
Nikiou, chapter cxiv, which, however, is full of perplexity. The 
text says on the one hand that 'Amr started upon this expedition 
'■ leaving a strong force in the citadel of Babylon,' and on the other 
hand it leaves the Romans in possession of Nikiou. Zotenberg 
suggests altering the text in a way that would read at (or before) 
Babylon instead of in Babylon : and this is the best solution. If 
this emendation is rejected, the alternative is to place the expedition 
between the fall of Babylon and the fall of Nikiou : but the interval 
of time is too short, and this alternative is practically impossible. 
The fact is that the events in this and the following chapters of 
John's Chronicle are tumbled topsy-turvy, and the task of resetting 
them in order is almost hopeless. 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 269 

with his troops from the MasHm camp at dead of 
night, and rejoined Theodore, who sent him on to 
strengthen the garrison of Nikiou under Domen- 
tianus. The other traitor who repented was called 
Sabendis \ Like Kaladji he made his escape from 
the Muslims by night, but he fled down the river to 
Damietta, which was held by a general named John. 
By John he was sent on to Alexandria with a letter 
to the acting governor. He confessed his crime 
with tears, but said, * I acted as I did because I had 
been put to open shame by John, who regardless of 
my age, had struck me in the face. Thereupon 
I, who had been a devoted servant of the Empire, 
went over to the Arabs.' So weak were the bonds of 
patriotism and religion even among the Romans. 

So at Babylon day followed day without any sign 
or message of hope to cheer the defenders. It was 
only ill news that reached them. They had heard 
of Heraclius' indignation against Cyrus and his policy 
of surrender, and of the sentence of exile pronounced 
on the Archbishop : but the legions of which the 
Emperor boasted still tarried, and the imperative 
orders which he sent to his generals seemed result- 
less, so far as concerned the fate of Babylon. Yet 
hope was not quite abandoned, until at last one day 
early in the month of March, 641, a great shout went 
up in the Muslim camp, and the garrison heard that 
news had come of Heraclius' death. Then indeed 
their courage failed. They can but have dimly 
conjectured the turmoil into which this event was 
destined to plunge the Empire ; but the end of the 
old warrior king was enough to cause profound 
discouragement and depression. * God broke down 

^ These names are certainly corrupt ; but I give them as they 
stand in John of Nikiou. 



270 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the power of the Romans by his death,' says the 
Arab historian^, and his words well express the 
effect of the change upon the armies in Egypt. It 
gave corresponding elation to the Arabs, who re- 
doubled their efforts to carry the fortress. 

But for more than another month Babylon defied 
capture. Then as victory still delayed, Zubair is 
said to have solemnly devoted himself as the leader 
of a storming party, for which preparations were 
ready. The moat had been filled in at the place 
destined for the assault, despite all resistance of the 
sickly and enfeebled garrison. But the actual 
moment of the attack was skilfully concealed, and 
the assault was delivered with such swiftness under 
cover of night ^ that Zubair s scaling-ladder was set 
against the wall unnoticed ^. The Arab hero sprang 

^ Suyutt, who however gives the wrong date, a. h. 19, while 
quoting Al Laith for the true date, a. h. 20, or 641 a. d. Makm 
has the same remark with the same error of date, and, like Suyfiti, 
he makes the news of Heraclius' death arrive during the siege of 
Alexandria instead of Babylon. Heraclius died Feb. 11, 641, 
months before the siege of Alexandria commenced. Makrizt 
makes the same blunder, but he adds that 'the Muslims were 
encouraged by the Emperor's death, and continued the siege with 
renewed vigour/ 

^ Ya'kubi is the only writer who mentions the fact that the 
assault was made at night : see Ibn Wddhih qui dicitur Al JacuM 
Historiae, ed. M. T. Houtsma, vol. ii. p. 168. 

^ It is not easy to decide at what point the Arab scaling-ladders 
were applied. Both Makrtzi and Abii '1 Mahasin say that it was 
near what was called in their day the Market-place of Al Hammam, 
and Yakut says it was ' near the site of the subsequent house of 
Abu Salih al Harrani, adjoining the Baths of Abii Nasr as Sarraj, 
by the aforesaid Market-place.' • Eutychius agrees that it was by 
the Suk al Hammam, and adds that it was on the south side of 
the fortress — a detail which seems curiously confirmed by Bala- 
dhuri. For this writer, after speaking of Zubair's arrival, which of 
course was from the north, says that he planted the ladder on the 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 271 

from it, sword in hand, upon the battlements, shout- 
ing the Muslim war-cry * Allahu Akbar,' while, as 
the defenders rallied, a fierce rain of arrows swept 
the w^alls from without, and gave Zubair s com- 
panions time to swarm up the ladder and make 
good their footing upon the parapet within. It 
seems that, in expectation of an assault upon this 
section of the wall, the Romans had blocked the 
ramparts by a cross-wall at either end, so that the 
scaling-party, after overpowering the guard upon 
that section and winning possession of the top of 
the wall, found their passage barred, and were 
unable to reach the stairs that led down within 
the fortress. They had effected a lodgement on 
the ramparts, but could go no further. Now was 
the opportunity for the defenders : if they had only 
retained strength and spirit enough, they might in 
turn have poured such a fire of arrows into the band 
of Muslims as would have cleared them off. But 
the limit of their endurance was reached. After 
a hurried consultation among the leaders of the 

opposite side, i. e. the south. But the place named as Siak al 
Hammam was probably part of the subsequent city of Fustat, 
which has now entirely disappeared. It would seem, however, that 
the assault was delivered somewhere near the south-east angle of 
the fortress, where the walls are still standing. 

The authenticity of the incident cannot, I think, be doubted. 
Baladhuri says that when Fustat was built, Zubair built a house for 
himself, ' which his son inherited, and in which the ladder wherewith 
the wall of Babylon was first mounted is still kept'] i.e. ninth century. 
Yakut also says, ' Zubair's ladder is said to have been preserved in 
a house in the Market-place of Wardan until the house was burnt 
down after a.h. 390 ' (circa 1000 a. d.). 

Yakut speaks of a second ladder as having been mounted by 
Shurahbil ibn Hajiah al Maradi ' near the Street of the Flute- 
Players ' ; but this indication also has perished with the city of 
Fustdt. 



272 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

defence in the dawning light, a parley was sounded, 
and George, the commander of the fortress, offered 
to capitulate, provided the lives of his soldiers were 
spared. 'Amr at once approved the terms, much 
to the indignation of Zubair, who urged that he had 
been on the point of taking the fortress by storm, 
* If you had only waited a little,' he said, ' I should 
have got down from the wall inside the fortress, and 
then it would have been all over/ But *Amr paid 
no heed to his remonstrance : a treaty of surrender 
was drawn up, under which it was agreed that in 
three days' time the garrison should evacuate the 
fortress, retiring by river, and carrying only what 
was necessary for a few days' subsistence ; that the 
fortress itself, with all treasure and war material, 
should be delivered over to the Arabs ^ ; and that 
the town should become tributary, 

^ It has been very dijfficult to construct an intelligible story of 
the fall of Babylon. The story of Zubair's escalade seems to come 
originally from Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, but generally is twisted by the 
Arab chroniclers into a shape of absurdity. As Makrizi gives it, 
the garrison fled on hearing the Muslim cry: Zubair opened the 
gates, and the Arabs rushed in : whereupon ' the Mukaukas, in fear 
of his life, proposed submission and tribute.' The Mukaukas was 
no longer there, and such proposals would be ridiculous after a 
complete capture by storm. Abu '1 Mahasin gives precisely the 
same version. Suyuti is nearly as bad ; for he says that when the 
Muslims had entered the fort, the Mukaukas began to negotiate with 
*Amr. But the version in the text above comes from Tabari, and 
is at once so clear and so rational that I have no hesitation in 
believing it, much as that author has in other respects confused the 
incidents of the conquest. I should add that there is a general 
agreement fixing the duration of the investment at seven months, 
although the date of surrender is confused with that of the unratified 
treaty of Cyrus, and so is made to coincide with high Nile. Weil 
in his Geschichte der Chalifen has been completely misled on this 
point, affirming the capture at high Nile, and rejecting the seven 
months' siege : but his whole scheme of chronology is wrong, e. g. 



Siege and Surrender of Babylon 273 

The final assault of the Muslims took place on 
Good Friday, April 6, 641, and the evacuation 
on the following Easter Monday ^ In the interval 
the fleet of boats was collected from Raudah and 
provisioned, and all preparations were made for the 
retreat of the garrison down the Nile. It was a 
mournful coincidence for the Christian army that 
their last day within the fortress should be the day 
of the Resurrection; and one would fain picture 
them as thronging the churches in sorrow and self- 
abasement for their defeat by the followers of 
Mohammed. It must, however, be recorded that 
neither the solemnity of the crisis in the history of 
Christian rule in Egypt, nor the solemnity of the 
day, availed to abate the fury of religious passion 
in the hearts of the Roman leaders. We have 
already seen that early in the siege a number of 
Copts in Babylon had been thrown into prison, 
either from their refusal to abandon their creed or 

he makes *Amr arrive at Babylon in January. The account of 
Tabarl is supplemented by that of John of Nikiou, who in 
chap, cxvii (which is obviously out of order) gives the actual 
surrender of Babylon, though the story of the siege is missing. 

^ Easter Monday is given with absolute clearness by John of 
Nikiou. He does not mention Good Friday: but (i) Friday is the 
Muslim dies/austus, and is the most probable day for Zubair's act 
of self-devotion ; and (2) John of Nikiou makes it clear that the 
garrison were allowed an interval of a day or two before the 
evacuation, because they had leisure on Easter Day to commit 
the acts of barbarity, which he records, upon the Coptic -prisoners. 
I may add that Ibn 'Abd al Hakam gives a letter from Omar to 
*Amr complaining of the delay in the capture of Alexandria (the 
context shows, I think, that Babylon is intended), and in the letter 
are the words ' Let the attack be made on Friday evening, for 
that is the time when mercy descends and prayer is answered/ 
This is recorded by SuyM (p. 72): and we know that Zubair's 
assault was at night. 

BUTLER T 



274 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

on suspicion of disloyalty. Easter Day was made 
a day of vengeance upon these unfortunate prisoners, 
who, after being dragged out of their cells and 
scourged, had their hands cut off by soldiers acting 
under the orders of Eudocianus. It is small wonder 
that the wrath of the Egyptian bishop is launched 
upon 'those enemies of Christ, who have defiled 
the Church by an unclean faith, and who have 
wrought apostasies and deeds of violence such as 
neither pagan nor barbarian hath wrought : they 
have despised Christ and His servants, and we 
have not found such evil-doers even among the 
worshippers of false idols ^* He describes the 
groans and tears of the mutilated captives, as they 
were driven out of the fort in scorn ; and, however 
illogical, it is not unnatural for him to think that 
the fall of Babylon was a divine chastisement upon 
the Romans for their savage maltreatment of the 
Copts. Truly the incident shows what implacable 
hatred divided the two religious parties among the 
Christians even at the moment when the fruits of 
disunion were fatally visible in the triumph of 
Islam. 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 567. 



CHAPTER XIX 

MARCH ON ALEXANDRIA 

The Treaty of Babylon : its nature and limits. Arab lesson to 
the natives. Renegade Christians. Restoration of Nile bridges. 
Advance of the Arab army northwards. Nikiou their objective. 
Battle at Tarranah. Cowardly retreat of Domentianus, and capture 
of Nikiou by the Arabs. Massacre there. Advance continued. 
Fighting at Kfim Sharik, Suntais, and Karifln. Defeat of the 
Romans and retreat of Theodore. The Muslims reach Alex- 
andria. Their view of the city, and their powerlessness against it. 
*Amr's Delta campaign. Failure at Sakha. His march to Tiikh 
and Damsts, and return to Babylon. Historical fallacies refuted. 

The siege of Babylon, which ended on April 9, 
641, had lasted for seven months. That fact is 
clearly preserved in Arab tradition, although the 
abortive treaty made by Al Mukaukas at high Nile, 
a few weeks after the siege began, is confounded by 
practically all the Arab writers with the final treaty 
of surrender, made when Al Mukaukas was banished 
from Egypt. In the light of the true story one 
sees how the confusion arose, and with it another 
confusion scarcely less remarkable. No question is 
more keenly debated by these writers than the ques- 
tion whether Misr — by which they sometimes mean 
Babylon and sometimes Egypt — was taken by treaty 
or by force. As regards Babylon we now know 
that there is a real foundation for a difference of 
opinion ; for on the one hand it was an act of force 
— the storming of Zubair — which put an end to the 
resistance of the Romans, and on the other hand 
that act of force was not a full capture by storm, 
though it caused the fortress forthwith to capitulate. 
Still the truth remains that Babylon was surrendered 

T 2 



276 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

under treaty, and that the treaty provided for the 
retirement of the garrison. Hence we must reject 
the story of great slaughter wrought within the 
walls as a mere growth of legend upon the version 
of capture by force ^ 

But the compact made at Babylon was a military 
convention and not a political treaty. 'Amr was 
content to purchase possession of the fortress at the 
price of the withdrawal of the Romans, who neither 
accepted Islam nor agreed to pay tribute. But 
tribute was laid on all the inhabitants of the city 
w^ho remained behind. As this arrangement was of 
purely local significance, so the tribute imposed was 
but slight and temporary. One authority gives it 
as a dinar for each of the Arabs, together with 
a change of raiment 2, which latter they greatly 
needed. This squares very well with a story told 
by another writer^, who says that after the sur- 

^ Eutychius says that while the garrison retreated by boat to 
Raudah, the Muslims slew, took captive, and plundered. Makrizi 
agrees that 'many of the inhabitants were slain, many made 
prisoners.' Possibly some bloodshed did occur ; but Suyuti says, 
' The Muslims took the fort and slaughtered the garrison ' — a very 
different story, in which he improves on Abu '1 Mahasin, who alleges 
that 'when the fort was taken, there was great slaughter.' No 
credence whatever can be given to the report noticed by Makrizi 
and Suyiitt that 12,300 Romans were slain by arrows within the 
fortress after the siege was over. 

2 Makrizi cites the Hadith of Ibn Wahb, quoting from 
'Abdarrahman ibn Shuraib. for this highly probable statement. 
The raiment consisted ofjuhhah, humus, turban, and pair of shoes. 
If the Arab forces were by this time reduced to 12,000 men, this 
would account for the 12,000 dinars recorded, of course mistakenly, 
by some writers as the total tribute imposed on Egypt, the name 
Misr being wrongly extended, as often happens, from the town to 
the country. 

* Tabari. When he speaks of Coptic soldiers, he may mean 
Egyptians who had been enrolled in the Roman army as local 



March on Alexandria 277 

render there remained at MIsr a great number of 
Coptic soldiers. These seeing the Muslims in rags 
and tatters remarked, * Alas ! why did we not know 
that the Arabs were in such an evil plight ? For 
we would have continued the struggle, and not 
delivered the city/ When 'Amr heard of this, he 
invited some of the leaders among them to dinner. 
He had a camel slaughtered, and the flesh boiled in 
salt water and set before a mixed company of Copts 
and Arabs. The Arabs ate of the meat, but the 
Copts only turned away in disgust, and went home 
dinnerless. Next day 'Amr ordered his cooks to 
search the town of Misr for every dainty and deli- 
cate dish it could provide to dress a banquet. This 
was done, and the same company sat down to a 
sumptuous repast. When dinner was over, 'Amr 
spoke to the Copts as follows : * I must have for 
you all the regard which our kinship imposes. But 
I understand that you are plotting to take up arms 
once more against me. Now aforetime the Arabs 
ate camel's meat, as you saw yesterday ; but now 
when they have discovered all this dainty fare that 
you see before you, do you think that they will sur- 
render this city? I tell you they will give their 
lives first; they will fight to the death. Do not 
therefore hurl yourselves to destruction. Either 
embrace the religion of Islam, or pay your tribute, 
and go your ways to your villages \' 

militia — a force which certainly existed, as is clear from John of 
Nikiou. The remark about kinship would be meaningless applied 
to Roman soldiers. Yet it is fair to observe that Tabari often 
speaks of Copts where he can only mean Romans. In any case 
the story is not of serious importance, though it illustrates *Amr's 
character. 

^ Ibn al Athir gives a rather different version of this tradition. 
'Amr, he says, learned that the Copts spoke disparagingly of the 



278 The Arab Conquest of - Egypt 

This anecdote Is at least curious as showing the 
other side to those lofty professions of Indifference 
to the good things of this world which we have 
seen uttered by 'Ubadah and quoted by Cyrus. It 
is perhaps memorable for another reason, because it 
cannot be questioned that now the alternative of 
Isl^m was chosen by some of the Copts rather than 
payment of tribute. The temptation of equality 
and honour and brotherhood with the conquerors, 
together with the prospect of plunder In lieu of taxa- 
tion, proved too strong for many of those Egyptians 
whose own creed had been crushed out by the 
millstones of Cyrus persecution ; and some of the 
Roman soldiers and settlers similarly abandoned 
their religion. These are the men who, in the words 
of the Coptic bishop of Niklou, * apostatized from 
the Christian faith and embraced the faith of the 
beast ' ; renegades who now, under the cloak of zeal 
for the Muslim cause, aided in seizing the posses- 
sions of those Christians whom the war had driven 
from their homes and In blaspheming them as 
' enemies of God ^.' But these apostates were few 

Arabs for their poverty and rough way of life ; whereupon, fearing 
that this frame of mind might lead to rebellion, he resolved to 
overawe the Copts by illustrating the difference between the luxury 
of Egypt and the coarse diet of the Arabs, and by pointing out 
that on this hard fare the MusHms had conquered the far more 
numerous armies of their enemies. The lesson made a deep 
impression on the Egyptians, who remarked, 'The Arabs are in- 
vincible: they have cast us down beneath their feet.' When this 
story was reported to Omar, he is said to have remarked that *Amr 
made war by argument, as other warriors by force. 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 560. Abii Salih has a curious tradition 
that the district adjoining Cairo on the south, long called Al 
Hamra, derived its name from the fact that there 'the Red 
Standard (Ar Rdyat al Hamra) stood at the time of the conquest 
of Misr by the Arabs, and around it were gathered those who 



March on Alexandria 279 

In number; the bulk of the Coptic people scorned 
them and their new-found religion alike, as is proved 
by the bishop's language. Once more, however, 
it must be repeated that the Copts at this period 
had neither leader nor organic unity. They were 
therefore incapable of corporate action. Isolated 
persons and isolated communities among them de- 
termined their own course of conduct from time to 
time, but always in isolation, since there were no 
means either for the formation or for the execution 
of any collective purpose. Accordingly it is quite 
erroneous to speak of the Copts in general as party 
to the treaty of Babylon, which concerned only the 
people of that locality. But the terms of the con- 
vention were offered to people in the vicinity ; thus 
'Abdallah ibn Hudhafah as Sahmi went by 'Amr's 
orders to Heliopolls and received the submission of 
the town and the country round it^, a fact which 

asked protection of the Muslims and marched in their rear-guard * 
(p. 102). On the other hand, Ibn Dukmak, in describing the 
several quarters of Fustat, writes : ' Then the three Hamras, which 
were so-called because the Romans settled in them : for they were 
the quarters of Bili ibn 'Amr ibn al Haf ibn Kudaah, and of the 
Banu Bahr, and of the Banii Saldmat, and of Yashkur of the tribe 
of Lakhm, and of Hudhail ibn Madrakah, and of the Banii Naid, 
and of the Banii '1 Azrak, who were Romans' (part iv. p. 5). 
I do not know what is the connexion between *Hamra' and 
' Roman,' but it is stated in the context that these Romans and one 
Rubil, a Jew, ' had marched from Syria to Egypt, and were among 
the non-Arab inhabitants of Syria, who accepted Islam before the 
battle of Yermouk.* 

^ This comes from Baladhurt. The statement is doubtless 
correct, and to it we may trace that confusion between the first 
capture and the final subjection of Heliopolis which vitiates the 
narrative of Tabari and others. That the number who came under 
this treaty was small is indicated by Abft '1 Mahasin, who gives 
6,000 souls as the total, while he quotes 'Abdallah ibn Lahi ah as 
giving 8,000, who by it were rendered liable to poll-tax (p. 19). 



28o The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

seems to show that at the previous occupation of 
the place no Muslim administration was established. 

But though the treaty was local, its results were 
felt all over the Roman Empire. Babylon or Mem- 
phis had long ceased to be the capital of Egypt : 
it had been eclipsed by the power and splendour 
of Alexander's city : but it was the gate between 
Upper and Lower Egypt, and a strong enemy 
planted in the wellnigh impregnable fortress had all 
Upper Egypt at his mercy, and dominated the Delta 
far northwards. What the Roman generals were 
doing all the winter through, and why they allowed 
the Muslim army to slowly wear down the resistance 
of Babylon, are questions that perhaps will never 
be answered ; but it is certain that by the capture 
of the fortress their own power, both moral and 
material, was greatly shaken, and that of the Arabs 
immensely strengthened. By Pelusium, Bilbais, 
Athrib, and Heliopolis *Amr now held all the east 
side of the Delta : at Babylon he held its apex and 
gripped the whole valley of the Nile in the middle. 
The conquest of Egypt was half accomplished. 

It must have been after the fall of the fortress, 
and not before as the chronicles imply, that *Amr 
ordered a bridge of boats to be built — or rather 
restored — from Babylon to Raudah, and Raudah 
to Jizah, thus spanning the whole width of the Nile 
and controlling all traffic and transport upon it. 
But the Arab commander was anxious to launch 
his army, too long chained to their camp at Misr, 
on the way towards Alexandria. In less than three 
months the Nile would begin to rise again, and there- 
fore time was precious. While dispatches were sent 
to Omar reporting progress and requesting more 
troops, arrangements were rapidly made for the 



March on Alexandria 281 

administration of the conquered town and territory : 
the fortress walls were repaired, and a strong garri- 
son was left under the command of Kharijah ibn 
Hudhafah \ Then, with his army remounted, 'Amr 
turned his back on Babylon, rejoicing to take the 
field again, and pushed northwards, following the 
western main of the Nile. The general's tent was 
left in position ; for just as it was ordered to be 
struck, it was discovered that a dove had nested in 
the top part and there laid her eggs ; whereupon 
*Amr remarked, ' She has taken refuge under our 
protection. Let the tent stand, till she has hatched 
her brood and they are flown away.' It is even said 
that a sentinel was left to prevent the dove from 
being molested 2. 

It is not very easy to trace the movements of 
the Arab forces in the campaign which now opened, 
because the Chronicle of John of Nikiou in these 
last chapters often seems a mere collection of frag- 
ments of history flung together at haphazard, and 
such narrative as can be founded upon it is often 
at total variance with Arab records. Yet a certain 
amount of reconcilement is possible, and there are 
points on which the coincidence is striking. 

There can be no doubt that the first point at 
which *Amr aimed on his march to Alexandria was 
Nikiou. This was a city of great importance and 

^ I have already noted that this statement, which comes from 
Arab sources, is supported by a contemporary document, No. 553 
in Karabacek's Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer : Fiihrer durch die Aus- 
siellung. 

^ I have given Yakiit's version of this familiar story. It fits very 
well with the time of year when 'Amr left Babylon — the end of 
April — and it has the ring of truth. The appeal for protection, 
even on the part of an enemy, was sacred in the eyes of the 
Muslims. 



282 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

a fortress of great strength ^ It lay on the river 
bank— on the east side of the western or Rosetta 
branch of the Nile — a long day's journey from 
Babylon, but only about two hours distant from 
Manuf, which was already in the Arabs' possession. 
Nikiou was not merely a flourishing town, marking 
its antiquity by colossal remains from the days of 
the Pharaohs ; it was also the seat of one of the 
chief bishoprics of Christian Egypt, and a place 
of the highest strategical value in the defence of 
the military route between Babylon and Alexandria. 
It was here therefore that the Roman resistance 
should have centred for a fresh stand against the 
Arabs. 

Moreover it seems that 'Amr began his north- 
ward march on the western^ or desert side of the 
Nile, where his cavalry could move with freedom, 
unhampered by the network of canals in the Delta. 
The Romans were prepared in a fashion for this 
movement, and the first encounter took place at the 

^ I have shown in the note on p. 16 that the site of the ancient 
Nikiou is to be found at the modern village of Shabshir towards 
the north-east of Maniif on the Nile. 

^ The name Wardan preserved in a village on the western side, 
coupled with the tradition given by Makrizi, clearly suggests that 
*Amr at first followed the western bank on his march to Nikiou. 
Indeed, provided that he was sure of crossing the Nile at Atris or 
Bani Salamah, that route offered fewer obstacles than the canal- 
seamed country between the two branches of the river. Makrizi's 
words are as follows : * On his way to Alexandria *Amr laid waste 
the village called Kharbat Wardan. There is a dispute as to the 
cause of this devastation. Sa'id ibn 'Ufair says that when 'Amr 
marched to Nakyiis to fight the Romans, he left Wardan behind in 
this village to settle afi"airs, but the people seized and carried him 
off". When at last he was found hidden in a house, *Amr ordered 
that the village should be destroyed. Another account is that some 
of 'Ami's rearguard were slain here.' 



March on Alexandria 283 

ancient and important city of Terenouti, or Tarnt!lt:, 
or Tarranah, as the Arabs learned to call it. Tarra- 
nah was a regular crossing-place on the Nile, on the 
way to Alexandria ^ : it was also the point of departure 
for the great Coptic monasteries in the Libyan 
desert : and it was natural that the Roman armies 
should not yield it without resistance. They gave 
battle 2 to *Amr, and at least saved their honour, 
though they suffered defeat, and the Arabs were 
able to continue their advance towards Nikiou. 

Nikiou lay, as we have seen, on the right bank 
of the river, near the place where the Pharaonic 
canal from Athrib and Manuf joined the Nile. It 
was too strong a fortress to leave on his flank: 
so the Arab leader was compelled to cross the 
river for its reduction, and to recross subse- 
quently. The Roman commander therefore had a 
fine opportunity for aggressive tactics. But instead 
of taking the command here in person with the bulk 
of his forces, Theodore relied on the weak and 
cowardly Domentianus to hold Nikiou with an 
inadequate garrison. Domentianus had a consider- 
able fleet of boats, which he meant to employ merely 

^ See Am^lineau, Geog. Copte^ p. 493, 'C'est la qu' Apatir va 
passer le Nil, venant d'Alexandrie, pour se rendre a Babylone 
d'Egypte/ and the other references given. 

^ This battle is recorded by Yakut, who says, ' At Tarniit there 
was a battle between 'Amr and the Romans/ Makrizi makes 
a strange blunder in this connexion. For in his account of 'Amr's 
march from Babylon against Alexandria, he says (vol. i. p. 163, 
BMak ed.) that 'Amr encountered none of the Roman forces till he 
reached Mareotis, and a few lines lower he places 'Amr behind at 
Mareotis, while his advance columns are at Kiim Sharlk ! The 
absurdity of this vanishes if instead of Mariut )oy>jA we read \)y)o 
Tarnut, which is certainly correct: but the slip illustrates the 
manner in which history is perverted by writers or copyists ignorant 
of geography. 



284 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

for the defence of the town or to contest the subse- 
quent passage of the Nile, which *Amr here must 
make, and which possibly he might even essay if he 
failed to capture the fortress. But when the Roman 
general found that the Muslim army was in close 
proximity, his heart failed, and abandoning army 
and fleet he took flight in a boat to Alexandria. 
Finding themselves thus betrayed by their leader, 
the garrison flung away their arms and rushed down 
into the canal ^ in a mad endeavour to cross it or to 
reach the boats. But the panic spread to the boat- 
men, who, thinking of their own safety, unmoored 
with all speed and fled in disorder down the Nile, 
each man making for his own village. Meanwhile 
the Arabs came up, and falling on the defenceless 
Roman soldiers in the water put every man to the 
sword, with the single exception of Zachariah, a 
man who showed extraordinary valour, and was 
perhaps spared for that reason. The entry of the 
Arabs into the town was unopposed : there was not 
a soldier left to offer resistance. Nevertheless they 
signalized their victory by a cruel massacre. ' They 
slew every one whom they encountered in the streets, 
and those who had taken refuge in the churches, 
sparing neither men nor women nor little children. 
From Nikiou they went to other places round about, 
plundering and killing all before them. In the town 
of Sauna they found Scutaeus and his people (who 
were related to Theodore) hiding in a vineyard, and 
they put them to the sword. But it is time to cease : 
for it is impossible to recount the iniquities committed 
by the Muslims after their capture of the island of 

^ This description proves the canal to have lain northward of 
the town of Nikiou, and confirms the identification of the site with 
Shabshir. 



March on Alexandria 285 

Niklou on Sunday, the eighteenth day of the month 
Genbot, in the fifteenth year of the cycle,' which date 
corresponds to May 13, 641 ^. 

This passage of the Coptic bishop I have given 
in full, because it shows how little reason the Copts 
as a body had to sympathize, and how little they did 
in fact sympathize, with their Saracen conquerors. 
For Nikiou was a stronghold of the Coptic faith ; 
and though Cyrus had scourged the people till they 
renounced its open profession, yet it cannot be 
questioned that in their hearts the victims of the 
persecution retained their old allegiance. But Copts 
and Romans alike were now overwhelmed in indis- 
criminate slaughter, the record of which contains no 
word to suggest that Copts were entitled to look for 
different treatment. At the same time it is clear 
that division and disorder were spreading like a 
plague through the country, and it was not long 
before civil war was added to the calamities of the 
time. Lower Egypt was split into two camps, one 
party siding with the Romans, while the other 
wished to join the invaders. Whether the dividing 
lines were those of race or creed, or, as seems 
probable, of faction, is a question left unanswered. 
But battle and pillage and burning of towns were 
common incidents in the conflict of the two parties, 
while the Arabs looked with contempt and distrust 
on these uncovenanted partisans. 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 568. For the date see my Appendix D. 
Zotenberg gives the name of the town as Sa. But Sa, the ancient 
Sais, lies nearly as far north as Damanhur, quite beyond the range 
of the Arabs at this moment. The heading to the chapter gives 
Safina as the name of the town, and this I have adopted. For 
Zotenberg's Esqoutdos I have ventured to conjecture Scutaeus, for 
a vowel would necessarily be prefixed to render such a name in 
Arabic, through which language the story passed into the Ethiopic. 



286 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

The capture of Niklou ^ and the dispersal of the 
Roman fleet on the Nile opened the way for the 
advance on Alexandria, towards which the main body 
of the Roman army under Theodore was slo ly 
retiring. 

*Amr took up his quarters at Nikiou for a few 
days ; but, ere resuming his march after crossing the 
river, he sent his lieutenant, Sharik, to pursue the 
retreating enemy. The way now lay along the left 
bank of the Nile, skirting the edge of the desert, and 
the country was favourable for cavalry. The Muslim 
advance forces overtook the Romans at a place 
about sixteen miles due north of Tarranah, but they 
found the enemy in greater strength than they had 
expected. Indeed, so far from routing the Romans 
at the first onset, they are said to have fought for 
three days ; and at one period of the contest the 
Arabs were repulsed and driven up some rising 
ground, where they stood at bay under fierce assaults 
from the Romans, who surrounded them. In this 
dangerous plight Sharik ordered Malik ibn Nai'mah, 
who possessed a bay horse of unrivalled swiftness, 
to make his way through or round the enemy and 
carry a message to *Amr. This Malik succeeded in 
doing : for though some of the Romans gave chase, 
they were unable to overtake him. On hearing of 
the danger in which Sharik stood, *Amr hurried 
troops forward at the utmost speed. It is said that 
the mere news of their coming turned the army of 
Theodore to flight : it is certain that Sharik was 
relieved, and the Romans lost the opportunity of 
overwhelming this detachment of the Saracens, as 

^ The Arab historians know nothing of this event and pass it 
over in absolute silence. The battle of Nikiou mentioned by 
Yakut is that which took place in Manuel's rebellion. 



March on Alexandria 287 

they had lost every opportunity which fortune 
offered. The scene of the battle was called after 
the Arab leader, Ktam Sharik^ or the Mound of 
Sharik, which name remains to this day. 

Steadily pushing the enemy before him, *Amr 
now probably marched north-east, still following the 
canal which borders the desert, till he reached 
Dalingat, and from that point struck due northwards 
in the direction of Damanhiir. Once more he found 
a Roman army barring his passage at a place called 
Suntais 2, about six miles south of Damanhtar, and 
once more an obstinate engagement resulted in the 
retreat of the Romans. They made no effort to 
rally at Damanhur or to hold the town ; but stream- 
ing north from the battlefield they struck the high 
road to Alexandria, crossed the canal, which now 
was nearly empty, and took refuge under the fort of 
Karitin after a march of some twenty miles. Kariun 
was the last in the chain of fortresses between Baby- 
lon and Alexandria, and it was a place of great 
importance for the corn traffic. Strategically too 
it controlled the canal on which Alexandria mainly 
depended both for food and for water : but although 

^ The details of this incident come from Makrtzi, who seems to 
be copying Ibn *Abd al Hakam. Ockley gives the odd form 
Keram '\ Shoraik to the place : but his whole account of the 
conquest is a tangle of misstatement and misplacement which fairly 
rivals that of the Arab writers. Eutychius calls the place the 
Vineyard of Shurik, but it is very unlikely than any vineyard was 
there. 

"^ Makrizi gives the form Sultais. In the translation of Eutychius 
the name appears as Sahtan — an obvious corruption. Weil in 
giving the form Siltis suggests that it should be Samiaits, or, as 
Ewald conjectures, Suntais, There can be no question that the 
last is the right form. Suntais is a considerable village, almost 
equidistant from Kum Sharik and Kariun. 



288 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the defences had been strengthened by the Romans, 
they in no wise compared with strongholds like 
Babylon or even Nikiou ^ Here, however, Theodore 
resolved to make his last stand, nor could he have 
chosen a better position than this, where the advan- 
tage of numbers was aided by the works of the 
fortress and the canal, while his retreat on Alexandria 
was easy to secure. .—— - 

Although the Roman army had been greatly 
dejected by the fall of Babylon and Nikiou, and by 
the treason and cowardice displayed by some of its 
leaders, yet even the Muslim writers admit that 
during this phase of the struggle it fought with 
obstinate valour. It was strong in numbers, 
large reinforcements having come over-sea from 
Constantinople. Theodore himself, though totally 
incompetent as general, was not wanting in courage 
or fighting spirit. Not merely the Alexandrian 

^ As regards the name Kariun see Amdlineau, Geog. Copte, 
p. 217, who gives the Coptic form ^epeir and the Greek x^^P^ov 
(stc)^ but does not give the more famihar Chaereum. John of Nikiou 
in chap. Ixvii says that the sweet-water canal (which the heading 
calls the canal of Kariun) was made by Cleopatra. Procopius in 
The Buildings of Justinian avers that ' the Nile does not flow as far 
as Alexandria, but, after reaching the city of Chaereum, proceeds to 
the left. The ancients dug a deep channel from Chaereum and 
turned part of the Nile stream into it to flow into Lake Marea. 
This channel is nowhere navigable for large ships, but at Chaereum 
the corn is transferred from the large vessels into barges and so 
brought to Alexandria' (Palestine Pilgrims Text Soc, vol. ii. 
p. 152). John specially says that Cleopatra's canal was navigable 
for large vessels, but of course the navigation depended on the state 
of the waterway. Ibn Haukal describes Kariun in his day as * a 
large and beautiful town on both banks of the Alexandrian canal. In 
summer when the Nile rises, merchants take boat there for the 
journey up to Fustat. . . . The town is the seat of a governor, who 
has under his orders the garrison composed of cavalry and 
infantry' (Quatremere, Mem. Geog. et Hist. t. i. p. 419). 



March on Alexandria 289 

army, but all the country round, realized the critical 
nature of the coming conflict at Kariiin, and contin- 
gents flocked to the Roman standard, not only from 
Suntais, but from more distant towns like Khais, 
Sakha, and Balhib^ It was no single engagement 
that decided the fate of Kariun. The fighting was 
not only severe, but it lasted over a period of ten 
days. In one of the battles, Wardan, the well-known 
freedman of 'Amr, was carrying the Muslim colours, 
and 'Amr's son *Abdallah was badly wounded by his 
side. Half fainting in the heat of the combat, 
'Abdallah asked his comrade to retreat a little that 

^ This is from Baladhuri (p. 220), who directly associates the 
Copts with the Romans in the struggle at Kariun. Sakha is between 
the two branches of the Nile, about twenty miles north-west of 
Samanud. I cannot find any name in modern Egyptian charts 
corresponding to Balhit, or Balhib as Yakut more correctly writes 
it, in accord with the Coptic ne\7in; but the place was well known 
and was the scene of a revolt by the Copts in a.h. 156 (Quatremere, 
Recherches, &c., p. 198). Its position is discussed by Quatrem^re 
{Obsewations sur quelqiies Points de la Geographic de tJEgypte, 
pp. 45 seq.), who shows that Ibn Haukal places it six saks north of 
Sandiun on the Nile, at the junction of a small western branch with 
the Rosetta main. This, taking the sak at about one and a quarter 
miles, would place Balhib, as Quatremere shows, somewhere near 
what he writes Mentoubes, but what is given in the Domains map of 
the Delta as Metouhes. But clearly Balhib was on the left, not on 
the right, bank of the river. The small branch has long disappeared 
in a morass, but there is a hamlet called Dibi in the place required, 
and the name DM may even be an echo of the lost Balhib. It lies 
in the bend of the river some ten or twelve miles south of Rosetta. 
Am^lineau {G/og. Copte, p. 314) is wrong in saying that the 
junction spoken of by Ibn Haukal was formerly at the village of 
' Dirouet.' Dairut is close to Sandiun, though across the river, and 
Amdlineau cannot have read Quatremere very carefully. 

Khais was in the region of Damietta : see Quatremere, Mem. 
G^og. et Hist. t. i. p. 337. Yakut gives Fartasa (or Kartasa) 
among the towns that resisted 'Amr, while he adds that *Amr made 
terms with Balhib. 

BUTLER U 



290 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

they might have more air to breathe in. *Air?' 
replied Warden : * you want air in front of you and 
not behind you ' : and they pressed forward together. 
*Amr, hearing of his son's mishap, sent a messenger 
to inquire of his welfare, whereupon 'Abdallah 
quoted some verses of reassuring tenour. This 
answer was brought to the chief, who exclaimed, 
* He is my son indeed \' Fiercely, however, as the 
Muslims charged time after time, the issue hung in 
doubt, and *Amr prayed the ' prayer of fear.' It 
looks as if this was a drawn battle, although the 
Arab writers make it a crowning victory. However 
that may be, there can be no doubt that at the end 
of the ten days the Muslims were so far victorious 
that they captured the town and fortress of Kari^n, 
driving back the Roman army. Whether the 
Romans were chased in headlong flight to the gates 
of Alexandria, or whether Theodore retreated in 
good order, cannot be determined, although the 
impartial record of John of Nikiou seems in favour 
of the latter alternative. 

These various engagements from Tarranah to 
Karilin must have caused serious losses on both 
sides. The Romans were better able to bear them ; 
but if allowance is made for the garrisons left by the 
Muslims at Babylon and various points in the Delta, 
it becomes clear that 'Amr's further advance would 
have been impossible, if he had not received heavy 
reinforcements during the preceding winter or spring. 

^ Makrizi gives this story, and is the authority for the ten days' 
fighting. Baladhuri merely speaks of an engagement at Kariun. 
John of Nikiou is unhappily very brief. He remarks that *Amr 
launched a great force of Muslims towards Alexandria, and they 
took possession of Kariiin, its garrison under Theodore retiring to 
Alexandria. 



March on Alexandria 291 

He could not have ventured to appear before 
Alexandria with less than 15,000 men: it would 
probably be nearer the truth to place his effective 
force now at 20,000. The capture of Kariun had 
completely cleared the way to the capital ; and as 
soon as his troops had recovered from the strain of 
the recent fighting, *Amr moved on, and covered 
unopposed the last stage of the march to Alexandria. 
Many of the soldiers in that army must have seen 
beautiful cities in Palestine, like Edessa, Damascus, 
and Jerusalem ; some may even have gazed on the 
far-famed splendours of Antioch or the wonders of 
Palmyra ; but nothing can have prepared them for 
the extraordinary magnificence of the city which now 
rose before them, as they passed among the gardens 
and vineyards and convents abounding in its environs. 
Alexandria was, even in the seventh century, the 
finest city in the world : with the possible exception 
of ancient Carthage and Rome, the art of the builder 
has never produced anything like it before or since. 
Far as the eye could reach ran that matchless line 
of walls and towers which for centuries later excited 
the enthusiasm of travellers. Beyond and above 
them gleamed domes and pediments, columns and 
obelisks, statues, temples, and palaces. To the left ^ 
the view was bounded by the lofty Serapeum with 
its gilded roofs, and by the citadel on which Diocle- 
tian's Column stood conspicuous ^ : to the right the 
great cathedral of St. Mark was seen, and further 
west those obelisks, called Cleopatra's Needles 2, 

* The Arabs approached the city from the south-east. 

^ That the so-called Pompey's Pillar was on the citadel is proved 
by the recent researches of M. Botti, Director of the Alexandrian 
Museum. 

^ These obelisks it was reserved for British and American 

U 2 



292 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

which even then were over 2,000 years old, or 
twice as old as the city's foundation. The space 
between was filled with outlines of brilliant architec- 
ture : and in the background, towering from the 
sea, stood that stupendous monument known as 
the Pharos, which rightly ranked as one of the 
wonders of the world. Even these half-barbarian 
warriors from the desert must have been strangely 
moved by the stateliness and grandeur, as well as 
by the size and strength, of the city they had come 
to conquer ^. 

The garrison amounted at this time to not less 
than 50,000 men : the place was amply provisioned, 

vandalism to remove from Egypt: one is now on the Thames 
Embankment, one in New York. They were originally brought 
from Heliopolis in the reign of Augustus. Their height, about 
68 feet, would enable at least their tops to be seen from some little 
distance without the walls. 

^ There is a legend that*Amr had seen Alexandria before. The 
story is that in his younger days he twice saved the life of a Greek 
deacon — once by giving him water when he was dying of thirst, 
and again by killing a snake which was about to attack him in his 
sleep. The deacon in gratitude promised him 2,000 gold pieces 
{£1,000) if he would come to Alexandria. 'Amr therefore accom- 
panied him, and while in the city took part in a game played with 
a crown-embroidered ball in the Hippodrome. 'Amr succeeded in 
catching the ball in his sleeve. * Such a thing never happened to 
any one,' say the Arab writers, 'without his becoming ruler of 
Egypt.' The reward named in this legend is not the least romantic 
part of it. Still *Amr may well have visited Alexandria in the 
course of trade, and he may have played a game in which a player 
who caught the ball was called ' king.' The story can be read in 
Ockley and Weil, but it comes from Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, and is 
quoted at length by Makrizl. One version makes the encounter 
with the deacon take place near Jerusalem, another near Alexandria. 
Abii Salih (p. 75) says, ''Amr had visited Egypt during the days 
of ignorance, and knew the roads leading thither, through trading 
there together with one of the tribe of the Kuraish ' ; and this is 
very likely the truth. Makrizi's account is in Khitat^ vol. i. p. 158. 



March on Alexandria 293 

resting on the sea, where the Muslims had not a 
single vessel to contest the Emperor's supremacy : 
and the walls were armed with that powerful artillery 
which, as we have seen, in the time of Nicetas had 
availed to crush and sink the river-fleets of an enemy. 
On the other hand the Arabs were totally destitute 
of siege equipment, being unable to transport the 
engines of war they had captured, and totally un- 
trained in the art of siege warfare. The Romans 
therefore had every material reason for confidence 
in defying the rude methods of the Saracen horse- 
men ; while they in turn, reviewing their extra- 
ordinary successes against the fenced cities of 
Palestine and of Egypt, found moral causes enough 
to give them assurance of ultimate victory. But 
such moral causes were destined to operate slowly : 
and when *Amr launched his troops in a mad tilt 
against the walls, the Roman catapults on the battle- 
ments hurled such a rain of heavy stones upon them 
that they were driven back out of range, nor could 
they again face the fire delivered by that artillery. 
All that the Muslims could do was to maintain their 
camp at a respectful distance in the hope that the 
enemy might be unwise enough to sally out and give 
battle. 

There is no trustworthy record of any such engage- 
ment. This incident of the ill-judged attack and its 
easy repulse under the pounding of the catapults 
sums up all that John of Niklou ^ has to say about 
the use of force against Alexandria ; and his silence 
must be taken to mean that siege In the proper sense 
there was none. On the north the city was defended 
by the sea, on the south by the canal and Lake 
Mareotis, and on the west again by the Dragon 

' P- 570- 



294 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Canal : on the east side and south-east alone the 
approach was open, and here the besiegers were 
unable to come even within bowshot of the walls. 
They were accordingly reduced to the necessity of 
proceeding by blockade, and that could only be 
of the most partial and ineffective kind : the idea 
of surrounding the city even on the landward side 
was quite chimerical. At the same time the main- 
tenance of an army encamped outside Alexandria 
was a permanent challenge to the Romans, and 
cut them off from the rest of Egypt. Precisely 
where the camp was pitched is hard to determine. 
Suyuti says that it was * between Hulwah and Kasr 
Paris, and beyond the latter.' Kasr Faris, or 
the Fort of the Persians, was on the east side^, 
and it may have been built by them as a necessary 
part of their siege operations, just as we know that 
Diocletian had been totally unable to make any 
impression on the strength of Alexandria until he 
had built a fortress to the east of the city 2. But 
even then it required a vast army, a siege of long 
duration, and treason within- the walls, to enable 
Diocletian to break through the almost impregnable 
defences. But we may take it for granted that the 
Muslims were at once reduced to passive measures, 
and that their camp, wherever situated, was merely 

* See note, p. 90 supra, and the passage in Barhebraeus there 
referred to. Abu '1 Fidd agrees with Suyuti ; while Ibn *Abd al 
Hakam says that after remaining two months at Hulwah, the Arabs 
advanced to Al Maks on the west 6ide. 

2 John of Nikiou, p. 417. The passage deserves quoting : *He 
succeeded in capturing Alexandria only after he had raised a fortress 
to the east of the city, and there spent a long time. At last some 
of the inhabitants came and showed him a place where he could 
effect an entrance ; but it was only with an immense army that he 
vanquished the resistance of the city with the utmost difficulty/ 



March on Alexandria 295 

a camp of observation. Indeed there is reason to 
doubt whether any encampment was maintained 
within sight of Alexandria, or nearer than Kariiin. 

It was now about the end of June. The Arab 
leader was not the man to cherish illusions with 
regard to the chances of storming the city. He 
realized that for offensive warfare he was com- 
pletely powerless against it. On the other hand, 
he could trust his followers to hold their own against 
superior numbers, if the enemy dared come out to 
battle. Therefore, as the Nile was now about to rise, 
he resolved to leave an adequate army in the camp, 
and to take such troops as could be spared across 
the Delta before the country became impassable ^ 

^ One ought not perhaps to pass over in silence the statements 
of the Arab historians with regard to the Copts at this period. 
Ibn 'Abd al Hakam says that the Copts helped the Arabs in every 
way they required, and that the Coptic chiefs kept the roads and 
bridges and markets open for them on the march to Alexandria ; 
and other writers have copied this report. Unfortunately Ibn *Abd 
al Hakam completely disarranges the order of events, and no 
reliance whatever can be placed on this assertion as indicating any 
general action on the part of the Copts at the moment in question. 
At the same time it is true, as we have seen, that assistance was 
rendered by the renegades who had turned Muslim and by those 
Egyptians whose services were requisitioned. But I have no doubt 
that the whole statement refers to the period of Manuel's revolt. 
Even less worthy of credence is Bal^dhuri, who says that when 
the Arabs appeared before Alexandria, the Copts in the city wished 
to come to terms, and Al Mukkukas asked for an armistice, which 
was refused. The story goes on to tell that Al Mukaukas then, in 
order to give the Arabs an impression of the great numbers of the 
garrison, put women and children on the walls with their faces 
turned inwards, while the men stood facing the enemy. 'Amr 
thereon sent a message saying, ' Our conquests have not been 
made by force of numbers. We have encountered your Emperor 
Heraclius, and you know the result.' The truth of this remark so 
struck Al Mukaukas, that he again counselled submission ; but the 
people reproached him with cowardice and treachery, and insisted 



296 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

But as the Romans had abandoned the country round 
Alexandria, all the pleasant houses and wealthy villas 
outside the walls fell a prey to the Saracens. They 
secured an immense booty, and pulled most of the 
dwellings to pieces, merely for the sake of the wood 
and the iron, which they sent by barges on the Nile 
to Babylon for use in bridging operations there 
against some hitherto inaccessible city ^ 

The column which *Amr now led across the Delta 
cannot have been a large one. Little resistance was 
Hkely to be encountered, except at the fortified places, 
and these it was now too late in the season to besiege, 
even had he any such intention. But as he had to 
return to Babylon, *Amr purposed at any rate to 

on fighting. All this is pure romance. Al Mukaukas had long 
been in exile, and the story is a mere echo from the siege of 
Babylon. Both Copts and Romans in isolated cases went over 
to the Muslim side; neither as a body welcomed or sided with 
the invaders. 

^ This is from John of Nikiou's ch. cxv, which is needlessly 
misunderstood, and wrongly corrected, in Zotenberg's note (n. i, 
p. 562). Upon the text, which runs as follows, 'Alors il alia 
rejoindre ses troupes ^tablies dans la citadelle de Babylone 
d'lfigypte et leur remit tout le butin qu'il avait fait a Alexandrie. 
II fit d^truire les maisons des habitants d' Alexandrie qui avaient 
pris la fuite,' Zotenberg remarks ' il faut lire " Babylone " au lieu de 
" la citadelle de Babylone " ' ; but the latter is quite correct, as the 
Arabs were in possession of the citadel. He adds, * " Le butin fait 
a Alexandrie '' et " les habitants d' Alexandrie " sont deux autres 
erreurs de traduction'; but surely the plunder of the suburbs is 
rightly described as 'taken at Alexandria,' and it is no stretch 
of language to call the dwellers in the suburbs 'inhabitants of 
Alexandria.' 

I agree with Zotenberg in finding it impossible to understand 
the passage describing the purpose for which the wood and iron 
were employed. The * city of the two rivers ' cannot mean Rau^ah, 
but must be some city in the Delta. The road to it from Babylon 
must have necessitated bridges of some sort. 



March on Alexandria 297 

make his presence felt In Lower Egypt. Accordingly 
he marched back to Karitjn and Damanhtar, and 
thence struck eastward through the province now 
called Gharbiah till he came to Sakha. This place, 
which lies about twenty-two miles nearly due north 
of the modern Tantah, was then and for long after 
the conquest regarded as the capital of the province, 
and It was strongly fortified ^ Any hopes of sur- 
prising the town were disappointed : once again 
the Arabs had to acknowledge their weakness and 
failure against strong walls encompassed by water : 
and they pushed on southward, probably following 
the Bahr al Nuzam, till they came to Tukh, which 
lies about six miles north-east of Tantah, and from 
Tiikh to Damsis ^. At both places they were easily 

^ Yakiit says, 'Sakha is the fortress of the province of Al 
Gharbiah and the residence of the wall. It was taken by Kharijah 
ibn Hudhafah, when 'Amr invaded Egypt' (vol. iii. p. 51). But 
Kharijah was left in command at Babylon, and John of Nikiou 
(p. 561) distinctly says that on this occasion *Amr could do nothing 
against Sakha. The capture was made at a later stage in the war. 
Sakhd is one of the few places in the Delta mentioned both by 
John and by the Arab writers. 

^ In John of Nikiou's account of this matter the words are * II 
marcha sur Sakha et sur Tukho-Damsis,' as rendered by Zotenberg. 
Amdlineau ingeniously conjectures that in the latter name the 
Ethiopic has run together the two Arabic names Tiikh and Damsfs, 
mistaking the copulative for a termination {G/og. Copte^ p. 525). 
This is quite convincing. As regards Tiikh, there are at least six 
places of that name in the Delta — Tukh al Aklam in Dakhaliah ; 
Tiikh Dalakah, Tiikh al Balaghtah, and Tiikh Tanbisha in Manii- 
fiah ; Tiikh al Malik in Kaliiibiah ; and Tiikh Mazid in Gharbiah. 
The last of these is probably, from its position, the one in question 
here. 

Damsis, now called Mit Damsis, lies about nine miles due east 
of Tfikh Mazid on the right bank of the Damietta branch. In the 
Domains map of Lower Egypt (Cairo, 1888) the name is wrongly 
given as '■ Mit Ramses ' — a curious error. Niebuhr gives it correctly 
as 'Miet Demsis' {Voyage en Arabie, &c., t. i. map, p. 71). 



298 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

repulsed. A raid down the eastern branch of the 
river to Damietta is mentioned in the same con- 
nexion, and may have been made by 'Amr s column 
at this time. Its object was to burn the crops now 
ripening for harvest, and it achieved no other result. 
No progress was made in the task of reducing the 
Delta to subjection, a task in which the Muslims 
had now been occupied for twelve months^, and 
*Amr, after many futile acts of violence and pillage, 
brought his column back to the fortress of Babylon. 
The number of points at which *Amr encountered 
resistance throughout the Delta, and his almost 
total failure against the more northern provinces, 
add one more to the many proofs destructive of 
the two current fallacies — that ' Egypt surrendered 
almost without striking a blow/ and that * the 
Egyptians hailed the invaders as deliverers.' 

^ John says that *Ainr 'spent twelve years in warring against 
the Christians of northern Egypt, but failed nevertheless in reducing 
their cities ' (Dr. Charles' version). Zotenberg conjectures two years 
instead of twelve ; but this would be wrong in point of chronology. 
If we read twelve months instead of years, the chronology is right, 
because it was now about the end of July, 641, and the first 
operations against the Delta towns began after the battle of 
Heliopolis in July, 640. 



CHAPTER XX 

EVENTS AT CONSTANTINOPLE 

Last days of Heraclius. Constantine and Heraclius II left 
partners with the Empress. Recall of Cyrus from exile. Death 
of Constantine. Rebellion of Valentine. Plan for restoration of 
Cyrus to Alexandria. Cyrus' motives for yielding to the Arabs. 
Accession of Constans. Martina in favour of peace with the 
Muslims. Theodore and Cyrus sent back to Egypt. Theodore's 
plan for escape to Pentapolis, and its miscarriage. They land at 
Alexandria. 

While the events thus chronicled were passing 
in Egypt, great changes had also taken place at 
Constantinople. The death of Heraclius has been 
briefly recorded as happening towards the end of 
the siege of Babylon. After his melancholy farewell 
to Syria in 6^6, his mind, which had suffered some 
derangement, slowly recovered its balance in the 
seclusion of Chalcedon : and in dealing with the 
crisis on the European side of his Empire he dis- 
played something of his old alertness and skill in 
diplomacy. But his health was broken : and the 
ravages of a painful disease were quickened by 
the monotonous recurrence of disasters, first in Syria, 
then in Egypt. The fall of Jerusalem had been 
followed by the fall of Antioch and of Caesarea 
and by the practical abandonment of Syria to the 
enemy : yet Heraclius was keenly alive to the im- 
portance of saving Egypt for the Empire. The 
drain of men and money caused by years of war 
had been enormous, but his diminished armies and 
exchequer could still furnish large reinforcements 
for the defence of the Nile. When Arab historians 
assert that he intended to command an expedition 



300 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

in person ^ they forget that the invasion of Egypt 
began little more than a year before his death, and 
by that time the mortal disease which was upon 
him had robbed him of all physical activity, if not 
of the very power of motion. The Emperor died 
on Sunday, February 1 1, 641 2, in the thirty-first year 
of his reign, aged sixty-six, two months before the 
surrender of Babylon. 

^ E. g. Suyutt, who writes : * Reinforcements kept arriving by 
sea from the Emperor for the Romans in Alexandria ; for he said, 
" If the Arabs take Alexandria, there will be an end of Roman 
sovereignty." Now the Romans had no more important churches 
than those of Alexandria ; and when the Arabs had conquered 
Syria, their festival (i. e. Easter) was kept at Alexandria. The 
Emperor commanded that the city should be well provisioned and 
its walls put into good repair, intending himself to take part in its 
defence, because of its great importance ; but as the Emperor was 
finishing his preparations, God destroyed him ' (p. 70). The date 
which the writer gives for the Emperor's death, and the context 
generally, make it clear that Heraclius the elder is referred to. 

^ This date may be taken as fixed, but there are the usual 
discrepancies on the subject. Theophanes and Cedrenus give 
March 11, Indict. 14, after a reign of thirty years and ten months: 
which is impossible, as the reign began in October. The Chronicon 
Orientale says that the Emperor died on Feb. 9 or 1 5 Meshir, after 
a reign of thirty-one years and five months. Though Feb. 9 does 
correspond to 15 Meshir, this term properly reckoned would 
bring us to March, 642. But Nicephorus put the duration of the 
reign very precisely at thirty years, four months, and six days. 
Heraclius was proclaimed on Oct. 5, 610 (Later Roman Empire^ 
vol. ii. p. 206), and counting from that date the term given by 
Nicephorus we come to Feb. 11, 641. This day was Sunday, as 
the Chronicon Orientale requires, whereas Feb. 9, which it gives, 
was Friday. Lebeau has the date correct ; but his editor, de Saint- 
Martin {Histoire^ du Bas Empire^ t. xi. p. 283), in a note prefers the 
mistaken date of Theophanes and Cedrenus, remarking, *As no 
other author gives the precise date of Heraclius' death, there must 
be an error in Lebeau's text ' ! I may add that John of Nikiou 
gives ' the month of Yakatit, which is February of the Romans, in 



Events at Constantinople 301 

So ended the strange vicissitudes of a great career. 
The work of his life had been to rebuild the shattered 
fabric of the Eastern Empire. It was a hopeless 
task when he essayed it : yet he accomplished it, 
or seemed to accomplish it, in an almost miraculous 
manner. But his downfall began with his triumph. 
The fabric he had raised lacked all cohesion, since 
his own unwisdom loosened or destroyed those bonds 
of common citizenship and common Christianity 
which might have held the people together under 
a system of religious toleration. That this fatal 
policy of the Emperor synchronized with the rise 
of the Muslim power from unknown Arabia is one of 
the most strange and most inscrutable coincidences 
of history. So fell, however, the destined order of 
the world : and Heracllus lived long enough to 
realize the mistakes he had committed, or at least 
to deplore the fatality which destroyed all the fruits 
of his labours. In matters relating to the Church he 
had followed the maxims of his time : his misfortune 
was that he had not risen above them, nor devised 
new principles of Church statesmanship to meet the 
new requirements of the age. For that failure he 
deserves rather pity than blame, though some re- 
morse must have been added to the physical suffer- 
ings which closed his life. Before he died, he made 
all arrangements for the succession, and he made 
his son Constantine swear to show mercy to all 
prisoners and exiles, and to recall those whom he 
had banished ^ The Emperor was burled In the 
church of the Holy Apostles, and his tomb was left 
open for three days : with his body was placed the 

the fourteenth year of the cycle, and the year 357 of the Martyrs,' 
which is right in every particular. 
^ Sebeos. 



302 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

crown of gold. This Constantine removed, but it 
was subsequently restored by Heraclius II, and 
dedicated to the churchy 

By the will of Heraclius, Constantine, the son of 
his first wife Eudocia, and Heraclius, the son of his 
second wife Martina, were left co-heirs of the Empire 
with the Empress. It was an impossible compromise ; 
and the strong-willed Martina, who had virtually 
ruled alone during the close of her husband's life, 
was not a woman to brook such a division of 
authority. Constantine, the elder of the two half- 
brothers, was given the pre-eminence by the people, 
and the treasurer, Philagrius, sided with him as well 
as Valentine, who was now created general and sent 
in command to Asia Minor ^ : so that Martina's 
designs in favour of her own son, Heraclius (or 
Heraclonas,- as he was called for distinction), met 
with strong resistance. Sergius, the Patriarch, had 
passed away before his sovereign, and a monk named 
Pyrrhus had been elected in his place. Pyrrhus 
seems for awhile at first to have sided against 
Martina with Constantine, and to have proclaimed 
Constantine Emperor to the exclusion of Martina 
and her children ^. But David and Marinus had 

^ Nicephorus, who says the crown was valued at 70 lb. of gold. 

^ This comes from Sebeos. Prof. Bury justly remarks that ' the 
history of the successors of Heraclius is veiled in the most profound 
obscurity,' and regrets that there are no contemporary historians 
{Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 281). But Sebeos and John of 
Nikiou are both practically contemporary, and both contribute a 
fair amount to the history of this period. Sebeos, no doubt, is 
chiefly concerned with Armenia ; John has a wider scope, though 
naturally his main interest is in Egypt. Both, however, are hard 
to understand. 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 564. The statement is very clear, although 
quite against the received story. Thus Prof. Bury makes Martina 
' in close league with the monothelitic Patriarch Pyrrhus ' (Id., ib., 



Events at Constantinople 303 

Pyrrhus kidnapped and secretly conveyed to an 
island in the west of Africa \ 

In fulfilment of his father's behest, Constantine 
now sent a large fleet to bring Cyrus back from 
exile 2. He wished to confer with the Archbishop 
on the state of Egypt, and Martina also pressed for 
his recall, as she was sure of his sympathy with her 
ambitions. Both the date and the result of this 
conference are quite uncertain, because it is not 
known where Cyrus was exiled, or how long it took 
for him to return to the capital. But Theodore was 
also summoned from Egypt to advise the Emperor, 
while Anastasius^ was left in command of Alexandria 
and the towns on the littoral, which had not yet 

p. 282). Pyrrhus must have changed sides : for John himself 
(p. 579) quotes a letter, said to have been addressed in the joint 
name of Martina and Pyrrhus to David, the Matarguem, urging 
him to make war against the elder branch of Heraclius' family. 

^ Possibly Malta or Gozo is intended. 

2 Mr. Brooks, in his article in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift 
(1895, p. 441) discussing this passage of John of Nikiou, says that 
the fleet was merely sent to bring Cyrus from Constantinople to 
Chalcedon. But John's words are : * Constantine assembled a great 
number of vessels, and sent them under Kirius and Salakrius to 
bring the Patriarch Cyrus to him.' Surely no large fleet was 
necessary for such a short journey. It is clear that Cyrus was still 
in exile, and though the place is unknown, the fact of his exile is 
not doubtful. John ascribes the recall of Cyrus to Martina, who 
doubtless urged it upon Constantine (p. 582). 

^ I have here taken a slight Uberty with the text of John of 
Nikiou, transposing the two names. The text runs, 'he sent orders 
to Anastasius to come to him, leaving Theodore to guard the city 
of Alexandria and the cities of the coast' (p. 564). But I think 
that these names must have been interchanged, because (i) 
Theodore was the commander-in-chief, and Anastasius' superior; 
(2) on p. 574 we find that Anastasius was actually governor of 
Alexandria prior to the return of Cyrus; and (3) on p. 573 
Theodore is with Cyrus at Rhodes on his way back to Egypt. 



304 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

fallen to the Muslims. Theodore was not in favour 
of any peace policy : and, whatever Cyrus may have 
said, he prevailed on the Emperor to promise that 
he would send large reinforcements to Egypt during 
the summer. Orders were actually given and vessels 
were made ready for the embarkation of troops, 
when Constantine, whose health had been failing 
ever since his accession to the throne, was seized by 
a fatal illness. He died on May 25, 641, after a 
reign of about a hundred days. Whether he died 
a natural death, or whether he suffered from foul 
play at the hands of Martina, is uncertain : but the 
charge of murder was openly made by Constans 
against the Empress, and the suspicion of it haunts 
the records of the time \ 

Martina profited by the death of Constantine to 
proclaim Heraclonas sovereign of the Roman Empire. 
As a concession to popular feeling, Pyrrhus was 
recalled from exile ; but the renewed ascendency of 
Martina kindled a resentment which soon flamed 
into rebellion. When Valentine heard of the death 
of Constantine and of Philagrius' disgrace which 
followed, he came with his army to Chalcedon, 
where Martina was, and demanded Philagrius rein- 
statement. This was agreed to by the troops of 
the Empress, and confirmed in a set speech by 

^ John shows that Constantine's sickness began with his acces- 
sion, but that his end came from a vomit of blood — possibly the 
rupture of a blood-vessel. Nicephorus agrees that the illness was 
of long duration. Theophanes seems to accuse Pyrrhus of con- 
triving the murder with Martina, but Pyrrhus was in exile, and not 
a partisan of Martina's. Cyrus may be meant, as the two names 
are often confused (see Zotenberg's note i, p. 564 of John of 
Nikiou) : but the charge is probably groundless. Sebeos uses 
a curious expression in saying that Constantine ' died, deceived by 
his mother.' 



Events at Constantinople 305 

Heraclonas; but, not content with this measure of 
success, Valentine crossed with Domentianus and 
other patricians to the capital, and there crowned 
the son of Constantine, known as Constans II, in 
association with Heraclonas ^ 

It seems certain that before this revolt of Valen- 
tine broke out, Heraclonas had already arranged for 
the restoration of Cyrus to his charge in Alexandria. 
The coronation of Constans must have taken place 
early in September, 641 ^ after the departure of 
Cyrus on his journey to Egypt. Cyrus was accom- 
panied by a large number of priests ; but so far from 
being shorn of his civil power, he was expressly 
authorized by the Emperor to conclude peace with 
the Arabs, to put an end to all further resistance in 
the country, and to arrange for the proper adminis- 
tration of Egypt. The terms of the authority given 
him suggest that Cyrus still cherished some hope of 
retaining the suzerainty of Egypt for the Empire : 
but there can be no doubt that he had impressed his 
conviction — honest or dishonest — of the necessity for 

^ According to Sebeos, Valentine on his arrival at Constantinople 
seized Martina, and, after having her tongue cut out, put her and 
her sons to death, and crowned the younger Constantine. John of 
Nikiou (p. 580) speaks of a revolt of the army at Byzantium led by 
Theodore, who seized Martina and her three sons, tore off their 
diadems, slit their noses, and sent them to Rhodes. The two 
versions differ, but both refer to the second revolt of Valentine, 
which occurred at a later period. Sebeos seems to indicate that 
Valentinian and Valentine are the same person ; for he speaks of 
Valentianus and Valentin indifferently in c. xxxii. Prof. Bury 
{Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 287) doubts the identity, but 
perhaps without sufficient reason. 

^ Mr. Brooks shows (1. c, p. 440, n. 2) that the Synod of Rome, 
held on Oct. 5, 649, is described as being in the ninth year of 
Constans : but he was not crowned as sole ruler till some time in 
November. 



3o6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

surrender upon the childish Emperor, the feeble 
senate, and the incapable courtiers of the capital. 
It is clear too that he had won over Martina to his 
pusillanimous counsels, that the party of Martina was 
the party of peace at any price with the Muslims, 
and that her policy was the policy of surrender 
incessantly preached by Cyrus. 

What tangle of motives crossed in the recesses of 
the Patriarch's mind, almost passes conjecture. He 
had been a craven, if not a traitor to the Empire, for 
months before the question of the imperial succession 
had divided men to the point of civil war. Why 
was he so ready to abandon the field of his work, or 
at least the fruits of his labours ? For ten years 
he had scourged and smitten the Copts into some 
semblance of subjection, but he knew that upon the 
removal of his heavy pressure they would spring 
back to their old faith. Had he come to see that 
his whole plan of persecution was a blunder and 
a failure ? Nothing is further from the fact. It is 
far more probable that, with the lessons of Syria 
before his eyes, he despaired of the fortunes of the 
Empire in Egypt, and counted not merely on toler- 
ance for his own form of religion in Egypt, but on 
such a reward for his aid to the Muslims as would 
enable him to maintain his ascendency over the 
Coptic Church in Egypt, while securing at the same 
time absolute independence of Constantinople. 

Upon the ruins of the Empire Cyrus was building 
new schemes for the aggrandizement of the patri- 
archate of Alexandria. Such at least seems the 
most probable theory of his action, the theory 
which best explains his mysterious relations with 
*Amr and his betrayal of the Roman cause. He 



Events at Constantinople 307 

v/as a traitor to the State in the imagined interest 
of the Church. 

Meanwhile he was content to follow or to guide 
the Empress, and to set at nought the strongly- 
expressed opinion of his Church against the scandal 
of allowing the issue of an incestuous marriage to 
sit upon the throne. There is clear evidence that 
Cyrus on his return journey to Egypt was furnished 
with a military force, destined presumably to 
strengthen the garrison, in case his peace proposals 
were rejected, or it may be to strengthen the faction of 
the Empress among them. Moreover, a new general 
of militia, named Constantine, was sent with him to 
replace the fallen John ; and Theodore either sailed 
at the same time, or was already at Rhodes when 
Cyrus arrived, waiting to join the expedition. 
Martina was also there, though it is doubtful whether 
her journey was caused by the progress of Valen- 
tine's rebellion, or by alarm at the specific act of the 
coronation of Constans. Probably she wished to 
consult with Theodore and Cyrus on this new 
development : but there was matter enough for 
anxiety in the troubled state of the court and the 
capital. 

For the plots of Valentine were as unscrupulous 
and as far-reaching as those of Cyrus. He had 
already sounded the depth of the army's affection 
for the Empress, and found it, at least in places, 
very shallow. All the treasure of Philagrius he 
squandered in bribing the soldiers in Egypt, and he 
so divided the forces there, that they ceased fighting 
the Muslims and turned their arms against each 
other. Civil war therefore had already broken out, 
and that not between Copts and Romans ^, but be- 

^ See p. 285 supra. 
X 2 



3o8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

tween different portions of the Imperial army. It 
was, however, Important to secure the adherence of 
Theodore, and to detach him from the cause of 
the Empress. Nothing was impossible In that 
atmosphere of conspiracy and cabal ; and Theodore 
had his own unavowed ambitions. When therefore 
Theodore received at Rhodes a secret missive from 
Valentine urging him to renounce allegiance to 
Martina, and when he learned that a similar message 
had been sent to Pentapolis and in fact to every 
province of the Empire, while treason was at work 
among the very troops ordered to Egypt with 
Cyrus, he made up his mind to abandon the cause 
of the Empress and to sail clandestinely for Penta- 
polis. His motive in this is by no means clear. 
He may have desired merely retirement and shelter 
from the coming storms ; or he may have resolved, 
like Heracllus, to stake his fortune on a throw for 
the crown, and to found a new empire at Carthage ; 
or he may have wished to gather resources and 
watch events, detesting the policy of surrender and 
hoping to strike a blow at the Muslims from Carthage. 
His scheme was to part company In the darkness 
with the fleet convoying Cyrus, and the captain of 
the vessel on which he sailed was the only soul 
made privy to it. Apparently the captain promised 
acquiescence, but repented of his promise, and 
alleged that the wind was contrary for the voyage 
to Pentapolis. So It befell that Theodore's design 
miscarried, and he found himself In Cyrus' company S 

^ The question of the date of Cyrus' arrival at Alexandria is dealt 
with in the Appendix on the Chronology of the Arab Conquest. 
Since writing it I have only found fresh reason to strengthen the 
conviction that he landed with Theodore upon the day given above. 
It is probable that Theodore was in a different vessel, and it seems 



Events at Constantinople 309 

with the rest of the convoy, In the harbour of 
Alexandria before daylight on the morning of Holy 
Cross Day, September 14, 641. 

as if he stole away from Rhodes without informing Cyrus of his 
plan. If so, he must have been overtaken by the ship carrying 
Cyrus. 



CHAPTER XXI 
SURRENDER OF ALEXANDRIA 

Civil war in Egypt. Factions in the capital. Arrival of Cyrus. 
Triumphant procession to the Caesarion. His sermon there. 
Persecution of the Copts resumed, Cyrus' secret journey to 
Babylon. Affairs in Upper Egypt. Conferences between Cyrus 
and 'Amr. Cyrus agrees to surrender. Treaty of Alexandria. 
Its provisions as variously related. John of Nikiou's version. The 
Arab text, and Arab commentaries. 

During the absence of Cyrus in exile, there had 
been frequent outbreaks of civil strife in Egypt. 
For a time the people of the province of Misr were 
at open war with those of the more northernly pro- 
vinces. Peace was restored after many acts of 
hostility; but no sooner had this quarrel ceased 
than fierce feuds arose within the walls of the 
capital. The Roman commanders were divided by 
jealousy and hatred, while the Green and Blue 
factions were more ready to fly at each other's 
throats than to face the enemy at their gates. Do- 
mentianus, the betrayer of the Fayum and of Nikiou, 
was at odds with Menas, his rival for the reversion 
of the commandership-in-chief. Menas had a bitter 
grudge against Eudocianus (brother to Domentianus) 
for the barbarities he had committed that Easter 
Day on the Copts in Babylon^; while Theodore 

^ This shows, no doubt, that Menas was a Copt or had Coptic 
sympathies. The Menas here named by John (p. 570) must be 
a different person from the Menas who was Prefect of Lower 
Egypt under Heraclius (p. 577), and who is described as loathing 
the Copts. But the difference in the sentiments is a clear proof 
that no argument as to sympathy can be founded on the Coptic or 
non-Coptic character of a name. 



Surrender of Alexandria 311 

had not forgiven Domentianus for his cowardly 
desertion of his post and his army at Nikiou. The 
wonder is that Domentianus was not cashiered or 
put to death ; the resentment of his superior officer 
was a small punishment. But he probably escaped 
the fate he deserved by the favour of Martina and 
by reason of his kinship to Cyrus, whose sister he 
had married. Still in spite of kinship and friendship 
and claims of gratitude, Domentianus showed to- 
wards Cyrus disrespect and unreasoning hatred. 
The Blue Faction were with Domentianus, and he 
enlisted a large force of the Blues in his quarrel — 
a move which Menas met by enrolling a body of 
the Greens. In this dangerous state of tension 
there came to Alexandria one Philiades, Prefect of 
the province of Fayum, and brother to George, 
the predecessor of Cyrus in the office of Melkite 
Patriarch. Philiades had been befriended by Menas, 
but ill requited his friendship. Moreover, he had 
been guilty of corruption or embezzlement of public 
money, and had made himself as unpopular with the 
army as Menas was popular. 

Matters soon came to a head. One day while 
Menas was at service in the great church called 
Caesarion with his Coptic fellow worshippers, the 
townsfolk rose in revolt against Philiades, and meant 
to kill him. He escaped, however, and hid in a 
friend^s house, whereupon the rioters went to his 
own dwelling, plundered it, and set it on fire. The 
rioters were of the Green Faction, and Domentianus 
at once sent his Blue company against them. A 
fierce encounter took place in the streets ; six men 
were killed and many wounded ; and Theodore had 
the greatest difficulty in repressing the disorder. 
In the end Philiades had his property restored, and 



312 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Domentianus was deprived of his military rank, 
though he seems to have been reinstated later when 
Theodore was summoned to Constantinople. The 
fact is that Domentianus, in spite of his personal 
hostility to Cyrus, was in close agreement with him 
on political questions ; both were high in the favour 
of the Empress Martina ; and both pressed upon 
her the policy of surrender to the Arabs. 

In relating the story of the faction fight in Alex- 
andria, John of Nikiou seems to confess that he is 
unable to explain its causes. For while his language 
suggests that the riot arose both from private 
enmities and from political partisanship, he is careful 
to add that by some its ferocious character was 
attributed to religious dissension : and yet he throws 
no ray of light on the nature of that dissension. 
Was it between Monophysite and Melkite ? or 
between orthodox Melkite and Monothelite ? or 
between Jew and Christian? The matter is too 
complex for conjecture : but when one remembers 
that a vast number of refugees from the Delta and 
Upper Egypt had flocked to Alexandria for protec- 
tion, and that John here speaks of the Caesarion as 
the scene of a Coptic service \ it might be argued 
both that the number of Copts in Alexandria had 
greatly increased, and that during the absence of 
their persecutor, Al Mukaukas, in exile, they had 
recovered some of their confidence and freedom. 
The Copts therefore may have been strong enough 
to fling their sympathies and antipathies into the 
seething cauldron of Alexandrian party warfafe. 
Yet one is astounded to read that when Cyrus, 
Al Mukaukas, landed on that September morning, 

^ He would not speak of any other than a Coptic congregation 
as an * assembly of the faithful' (p. 571). 



Svirrender of Alexandria 313 

the whole city went wild with delight, * rejoicing 
and giving thanks for the arrival of the Patriarch 
of Alexandria ^ ' ; and all the people, men and women, 
young and old, flocked to greet him and do him 
honour. Not a note of discord is sounded or a 
whisper of fear. Yet the Copts can have felt no 
joy or even hope at the return of Al Mukaukas, 
and the conclusion is irresistible that after all they 
were but a very small body, lost in the great popula- 
tion of the capital. 

But ere the news of his arrival spread through 
the waking city, Cyrus betook himself in secret with 
Theodore to the convent of the monks of Taben- 
nesi, which probably lay near the landing-place ^. 

^ These words are Dr. Charles' rendering of the Ethiopia version. 
Nothing to my mind more clearly proves the impartiality and 
conscientiousness of John of Nikiou than this account of Cyrus' 
return. It would have been easy to represent his reception as cold, 
or to say nothing about it. John writes that it was very warm, 
and that it was the return not so much of the man as of the 
* Patriarch of Alexandria' which caused the rejoicing (p. 574). 
Am^lineau in his strange critique upon John actually makes this 
truthfulness a cause of reproach : * Je suis en outre bien dtonn^ 
que Jean de Nikiou, ^veque Jacobite, reconnaisse a Cyrus, qu'il 
devait ex^crer et anathdmatiser, la dignitd de Patriarche d'Alex- 
andrie, alors que le Patriarche Jacobite Benjamin, le seul legitime 
a ses yeux, vivait en exil dans la Haute-figypte * ( Vie du Patriarche 
Copte Isaac, p. xxvi). Surely John's candour vastly increases our 
confidence in him as a historian. 

^ Tabennesi was a place about ten miles north of Tentyris or 
Dandarah in Upper Egypt. It was the centre of the brotherhood 
of the order of St. Pachomius : see Quatremere, Mem. Ge'og. et 
Hist, t. i. p. 281, and Amdlineau, Ge'og. Copte, p. 469, and the 
authorities there quoted. It was a strictly Coptic order, but the 
convent in Alexandria had clearly been appropriated by Cyrus for 
the Melkites, or else the monks there were among the many 
thousands whom the persecution had detached from the Coptic 
profession of faith. 



314 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

The door of the church was closed, and a message 
was sent summoning Menas to the monastery. 
Theodore at once gave Menas the office of military 
commander of the garrison, deposing Domentianus, 
whom the populace forthwith hounded out of the 
city. The coincidence of Cyrus' arrival with the 
festival of the Exaltation of the Cross was well 
calculated to revive the drooping spirits of the 
Romans, and Cyrus made the most of it. It will 
be remembered that when John, general of militia, 
was dispatched to Egypt by Heraclius as bearer of. 
the famous Ecthesis to Cyrus, he brought also with 
him for the Patriarch a cross of special sanctity — 
possibly enclosing a portion of the Holy Rood itself \ 
This treasured relic had been deposited in the convent 
of the monks of Tabennesi, and nothing was more 
natural than that it should be carried in procession 
with Cyrus to the great church of Caesarion, at 
which the festival service was to be holden. All 
the way from the convent to the cathedral Cyrus' 
path was strewn with carpets, while streamers and 
banners of silk fluttered, the smoke of incense rose, 
and hymns resounded in his honour. Yet broad as 
were the streets of the Great City, they were so 
thronged that people trod one upon another, and 
the Archbishop had the utmost difficulty in making 
his passage through the crowds to reach the 
cathedral. The procession, however, moved slowly 
onward, and at length, after passing between the 
two ancient Egyptian obelisks and through the 
cloistered court, entered the door of the Caesarion. 

There, as was fitting, the Archbishop in his sermon 
dwelt upon the Invention of the Cross ^ and its 

' See above, p. 182, n. i, and p. 222, n. i. 

'^ This passage in John of Nikiou (p. 574) is obviously corrupt, 



Surrender of Alexandria 315 

Exaltation, which the Eastern Church, then as now, 
celebrated together. It was a theme which might 
have fired a less eloquent tongue than that of Cyrus, 
as he recalled the strange eventful history of Hera- 
clius crusade, the recovery of the Holy Rood from 
captivity with the Persians, and its uplifting on that 
day of triumph in Jerusalem. Yet what lesson did 
Cyrus draw, or wish to draw, from the story ? Jeru- 
salem itself was now in captivity to the Muslims, 
and the Muslims were at the very gates of Alex- 
andria. The position was almost as bad as when 
Chosroes held all Palestine, Syria, and Egypt : but 
did Cyrus dare to point the moral of hope and faith 
to his hearers, to encourage them in resistance in 
the name of the Cross, when in his own heart he 
had forsaken the cause of the Cross and resolved 
to bow it down before the standards of Mohammed ? 
Perhaps he avoided politics altogether : but it is 
certain that he did not unburden ' the secrets of his 
overcharged soul ' that day in the ambon. 

and has been misconstrued by Zotenberg, who renders thus : ' II fit 
ouvrir (?) la citerne dans laquelle se trouvait la Sainte-Croix qu'il 
avait re9ue avant son exil du General Jean. II avait pris aussi la 
venerable croix du couvent des Tabenn^siotes.' Zotenberg himself 
puts the query after the words which he translates ' II fit ouvrir'; for 
he sees that the whole sentence makes no sense. Dr. Charles 
renders : ' He highly extolled the well in which the Holy Cross had 
been found ' and this gives a clear allusion to the Invention by 
Helena. The words which follow have, I feel sure, slipped from 
their proper order. It was not the Holy Cross itself which Cyrus 
had received through John before his exile : Heraclius never would 
have sent and never did send that most precious of all relics to 
Egypt. The cross which came to Cyrus was the cross kept by the 
Tabennesi monks, and the passage should run : * He had taken 
also (to the Caesarion) from the convent of the Tabennesi monks 
the cross, which he had received at the hands of the general John.' 
This makes complete sense out of absurdity. 



3i6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

But the service ended unhappily. When they 
came after the sermon to the mass, the deacon 
instead of reading the verses proper to the day 
gave out another psalm with direct reference to the 
return of the Archbishop, whom he desired to praise 
and congratulate. The people who heard it said at 
once that the change was against the canons and 
was of very evil omen for the Archbishop, and, as 
the story runs, that he would never look upon 
another Easter ^ No doubt they thought him 
looking worn and ill. His exile had told upon him 
physically : his rough passage through the crowds 
and the exertion of preaching had tried his strength : 
and above all he must have carried on his face 
tokens of that inner conflict which was tearing him 
to pieces. These people trusted him ; hailed him 
as their champion and deliverer ; their hearts were 
lifted up and their faith in the Cross exalted ; they 
w^ould fight and conquer in that sign. But while 
their hopes were kindled, the Archbishop was de- 
pressed by the gnawing consciousness that he was 
about to betray them all, to betray the cause of the 
Cross and the cause of the Roman Empire. It was 
a dramatic situation, and it is small wonder that 
haggard looks told of the strain even on that 
haughty temper, and that in them men read the 
omen of death. 

For some little time after his arrival Cyrus was 
busied in dealing with matters of Church and State 
which demanded urgent attention in Alexandria. 
Anastasius seems to have acted as civil governor 

^ The question of the coincidence of Cyrus' return with that of 
Theodore, and the question of the day upon which the wrong 
chant was used, are discussed in the Appendix upon the 
Chronology of the Arab Conquest. 



Surrender of Alexandria 317 

of the city during the absence of Cyrus, and it is 
just possible that the George to whom Cyrus had 
delegated his episcopal authority upon his departure 
was none other than his predecessor in the office of 
Patriarch ^ George was now an old man but very 
influential, and he was treated with great deference 
by all from the governor downwards. He had no 
part in the persecution of the Copts ; indeed the 
absence of Cyrus on the one hand, and the severance 
of whole districts from imperial control on the other, 
had given the Copts a breathing-space. But Cyrus 
had not forgotten his hatred against the native 
Church of Egypt. He was ready to hand over the 
country to the enemy, and to make peace with the 
unbeliever ; but for the Copts there was no peace 
and no forgiveness. The sword was again drawn : 
and so far from being softened by his own adversity, 
Cyrus hardened his heart and renewed his reign of 
violence and oppression against those who were not 
beyond his reach 2. 

It is indeed strange that the Mukaukas should 
have thought it worth while to revive his persecu- 
tion. Possibly, however, his action may have served 
to blind the people of Alexandria to his real design, 
which was to deliver all Egypt over to the Arabs, 
For that he had no doubt the Emperor's warrant ; 
but it was a warrant wrung from ^puppet ruler by 

^ This is only a bare possibility. John of Nikiou says that he 
had been nominated by Heraclius, but the office is not stated. 
It must, however, have been either the patriarchate or the governor- 
ship of the city, and John's language implies the former: see p. 170, 
n. 2 supra. On the other hand if this George were governor, could 
he be the George said by Arab writers to have been governor in 
627 at the time of Mohammed's mission to Egypt — the George 
son of Mina wrongly called Al Mukaukas ? 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 566. 



3i8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

cowardice and chicanery, and a warrant which he 
dared not avow either, as it seems, to the highest 
officers of state in Alexandria or to the people. 
Alone, or accompanied only by some of his priests, 
who may have shared his secret, the Mukaukas 
made his way to Babylon. It was now the season 
of high Nile again ^ — towards the end of October — 
and just about a year had passed since he had made 
his abortive treaty of Babylon, which the old Emperor 
tore up in indignation. 

*Amr himself had only just returned to Babylon ; 
but whether up to this time he had been engaged 
against those Delta towns which foiled him, or 
whether he had in person led an expedition which 
was sent to Upper Egypt, is uncertain ^ The fact 
of the expedition is not doubtful, and a small column 
of Muslims got as far as Antinoe, the modern 
Ansiucl, then the capital of the Thebaid. As the 
Roman troops were not yet all withdrawn from this 
region, the townsfolk took counsel with their Pre- 
fect, named John, and desired to offer resistance to 
Arabs. John, however, absolutely refused to fight : 
he seized all the public money which had been 
collected, and carried it off with his troops, making 
his way across the desert westward to Alexandria. 
He had no wish to meet the fate which had befallen 
the garrison of the Fayum, and was besides quite 
unable to cope with the Muslims. So the conquest 
of Upper Egypt was comparatively easy. 'When 

^ The fact that Al Mukaukas twice negotiated at the time of the 
inundation explains and excuses much of the confusion in the Arab 
writers between the siege of Babylon and that of Alexandria. 

^ Ibn Kutaibah says that 'Amr's return from the Delta was in 
Dhij'l Ka'dah, a. h. 20 (Oct. 12-Nov. lo, 641), but John of Nikiou 
makes out that he returned earlier and went himself to Upper 
Egypt (p. 562). 



Surrender of Alexandria 319 

the Muslims saw the weakness of the Romans and 
the hostility of the people to the Emperor Heraclius 
because of the persecution, wherewith he had visited 
all the land of Egypt, against the orthodox faith at 
the instigation of Cyrus, the Chalcedonlan Patriarch, 
they became bolder and stronger in the war ^ ' : for 
little as the Copts loved the Saracens, here In Upper 
Egypt the feeling against their persecutors was most 
bitter. In the Fayum, which was already settling 
down under Arab rule as a tributary province, matters 
had gone so far that the inhabitants killed any 
Roman soldier they chanced to encounter, and 
further south the Copts had even less motive to 
fight for the Empire. 

But, after the subjugation of Upper or at least 
Middle Egypt, the Arab commander had come back 
to Babylon to rest there during the flood-time : and 
it was in the great fortress that he received Cyrus, 
when he came on his mission of surrender. 'Amr 
gave him a kindly welcome, and, on hearing that his 
purpose was to sue for peace, he remarked ' You 
have done well to come to us.' The Patriarch said 
that in order to put an end to the war, the people 
would be willing to pay tribute, adding, * God has 
given this country to you : let there be no more 
enmity between you and the Romans I' One may 
well believe that negotiations and consultations were 
spun out over several days in oriental fashion ; but 
in the end an agreement was reached on all points, 
and a treaty was signed on November 8, 641. 

^ John of Nikiou, 1. c. 

^ ' Heretofore there has been no strife with you ' are the con- 
cluding words of Cyrus in the text. Zotenberg inserts the word 
prolong/es before hostilitis^ but that scarcely redeems the curious 
inaccuracy of the statement. There is clearly some error in 
the MS.. 



320 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

This treaty — which may be called the Treaty of 
Alexandria, both to distinguish it from the former 
Treaty of Babylon and because it turned mainly on 
the surrender of Alexandria — sealed the Arab con- 
quest of Egypt. Its terms are somewhat variously 
reported, but the principal covenants are given by 
John of Nikiou as follows : — 

(i) Payment of a fixed tribute by all who came 
under the treaty. 

(2) An armistice of about eleven months, to expire 
the first day of the Coptic month Paophi, i. e. Sep- 
tember 28, 642. ^ 

(3) During the armistice the Arab forces to main- 
tain their positions, but to keep apart and undertake 
no military operations against Alexandria; the 
Roman forces to cease all acts of hostility. 

(4) The garrison of Alexandria and all troops 
there to embark and depart by sea, carrying all their 
possessions and treasure with them : but any 
Roman soldiers quitting Egypt by land to be subject 
to a monthly tribute on their journey. 

(5) No Roman army to return or attempt the 
recovery of Egypt. 

(6) The Muslims to desist from all seizure of 
churches, and not to interfere in any way with the 
Christians. 

(7) The Jews to be suffered to remain at Alex- 
andria. 

(8) Hostages to be given by the Romans, viz. 

^ This would be just eleven months by Arab reckoning, rather 
less by Roman. See Appendix on the Chronology. The armistice 
is clearly recorded by Ibn al Athir, though it is made to cover only 
such time as was required to obtain Omar's answer about the 
disposal of the prisoners. 



Surrender of Alexandria 321 

1 50 military and 50 civilian, for the due execution of 
the treaty. 

These articles are not set out by the Coptic 
historian quite in the order in which, for the sake 
of convenience, I have ventured here to place 
them. Under the first article a general security 
was given for the life, property, and churches of 
the Egyptians, who were also to be allowed the 
free exercise of their religion. For the payment of 
tribute and taxes constituted them a protected people 
{akl adh dhimmah) with a status implying these 
privileges. The tribute was fixed at two dinars per 
head for all except very old men and children, and 
the total capitation-tax was found to amount to 
12,000,000 dinars, or about ;^6,ooo,ooo ^ : but in 
addition to the capitation-tax, a land-tax or property- 
tax was imposed. The third article rnust, I think, 
be limited by reference to Alexandria alone, because, 
although Cyrus made the treaty on behalf of the 
Egyptians in general, he could not guarantee that 
every city and community would consent to be bound 
by it ; and it would be unreasonable that the Arabs 
should be debarred from fighting in case of further 
resistance. It is, moreover, clear that in fact such 

^ The number of the able-bodied male population is very 
variously given by the Arab authorities, who make the capitation- 
tax vary between 12,000 and 300,000,000 dinars : but 12,000,000 is 
the most probable estimate. The land-tax was at first made payable 
in kind — a fact which seems to be the foundation for the statement 
that the Copts supplied the Arabs with provisions after the surrender 
of Babylon. Abu Salih says that 'Amr imposed a yearly tax of 
26f dirhems, but from the well-to-do he exacted two dinars and 
three ardebs of wheat. ' In this way the country produced 
12,000,000 dinars without reckoning the tribute of the Jews in 
Egypt ' (p. 75) : but on p. 74 is a rather different account, clearly 
from another source. 



A 



322 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

resistance was offered in places, and was conquered, 
during the term of the armistice. 

It will be noticed that John of Nikious version of 
the treaty says nothing about the date of the first 
payment of tribute or of subsequent payments, but 
he implies clearly that an instalment was demanded 
very shortly, and this is explicitly confirmed by the 
Arab writer Ibn Khaldtan \ 

We are now in a position to appreciate the per- 
plexity of the Arab writers and the divergence of 
their answers to the question they are so fond of 
debating — whether Egypt was taken by treaty or 
by force. One must, however, so far anticipate the 
later history of Alexandria as to remark that, three 
or four years after its surrender by Cyrus, it was 
recovered by the Romans, and retaken by the Arabs : 
but the second capture was by force of arms, and 
not by capitulation. Here, then, we have some 
curious coincidences. First of all Babylon was 
surrendered by Al Mukaukas at the time of high 
Nile under a convention, which the Emperor refused 
to ratify. Subsequently the fortress was stormed ; 
but, before the storming party made good their 
entry, the garrison offered to surrender, and did 
actually capitulate under treaty. Next, Alexandria 
surrendered at the time of high Nile under a treaty 
and almost without pressure ; but after the city had 
been for some time in possession of the Arabs, it 
was recovered by the Romans, who were only 

^ John makes the Arabs come shortly after the treaty to take the 
tribute from Alexandria : Ibn Khaldiin, quoting the terms of the 
treaty, says, ' The people of Egypt are bound to pay the poll-tax as 
soon as they have come to an agreement upon this treaty, and the 
overflow of the river has ceased.' The extract is further important 
as showing that the treaty was made at high Nile. 



Surrender of Alexandria 323 

driven out after a siege which ended in capture 
by force. 

Looking at these strange results, when one 
remembers that the earliest Arab authorities wrote 
some two hundred years after the conquest, and 
when one reflects on the immense difficulty of 
preserving these bewildering coincidences in their 
original shape through two centuries of tradition 
mainly oral, then one may feel astonished, not that 
the story has passed through endless confusions and 
contortions, but that the Arab mind, so wanting in 
historic sense, so blind to historic proportion, should 
have stored up so many fragments of truth, however 
out of order and relation. It is quite intelligible 
now that some writers should represent Babylon as 
taken by treaty, others by force ; and the same in 
regard to Alexandria. The fact is, that while both 
versions are in a sense true in each case, neither is 
true in either case without qualification. 

It is worth while briefly to examine some of these 
authorities, who add some interesting details. Thus 
Baladhuri, who wrote in the ninth century, quotes 
*Abdallah, the son of 'Amr, as saying, that after the 
capture of Babylon by force, *Amr took counsel with 
his chiefs and resolved to come to terms with the 
Egyptians. He made a treaty imposing a tribute 
of two dinars a head on all able-bodied males, and 
a tax on all landowners ^ : moreover, every Muslim 
was to be provided with a complete change of raiment 
every year. By request of the governor, Al Mu- 
kaukas, this treaty was to apply to the whole of 
Egypt, but all Romans who wished were permitted 

^ This tax is given as three ardebs of wheat, two kists of olives, 
two of honey, two of vinegar, to be collected and stored in the 
public storehouse (p. 215). 

Y 2 



324 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

to quit the country. Baladhuri wrongly represents 
the Emperor as rejecting this treaty, for it is quite 
clear that he is describing the Treaty of Alexandria. 
On the other hand, in proof of the statement that 
Egypt was taken by force, he records a story that 
*Amr, speaking once from the pulpit, said, * I have 
taken my seat in this country without a compact 
with one of the Copts. If I please, I can kill them 
or sell them as slaves.' These words, if rightly 
reported, could only mean that the Copts had no 
voice in the matter — that the only parties to the 
treaty were the Arabs and the Romans. This, of 
course, was true ; but the Copts were covered by 
the treaty ; and Baladhuri goes on to prove this. 
For he relates that when Mu awiah wrote to Warden 
pressing him to increase the tribute of the Copts, 
Wardan pointed out that he could not do so without 
violating the treaty of peace. So too he quotes 
a son of Zubair as saying, * I lived seven years in 
Egypt and married there. The people were taxed 
above their means and were in distress, although 
"^Amr had made a treaty with them with fixed condi- 
tions! He adds that there is other evidence for the 
existence of the treaty. But he cannot get rid of the 
idea that Alexandria was taken by force, although 
he admits *that 'Amr did not kill or enslave the 
inhabitants, only making them protected allies.* The 
two things are quite inconsistent, and his admission is 
proof that, in speaking of capture by force, Baladhuri 
is thinking of the second capture of Alexandria. 

But the text of the treaty is actually given by 
Tabari, who by a strange confusion calls it the Treaty 
of * Ain Shams, instead of the Treaty of Alexandria. 
Here are the words : — 

* This is the security which 'Amr ibn al *Asi gave 



Surrender of Alexandria 325 

to the people of Egypt for themselves, their bodies, 
and their possessions, for the whole and the part 
and all their numbers. Nothing shall be added to 
this treaty or taken away from it. The Nubians 
shall not be allowed to invade the country. The 
people of Egypt are bound to pay the poll-tax as 
soon as they have come to an agreement on this 
treaty of peace, and when the overflow of the river 
has ceased — fifty millions^ in amount. 'Amr is 
bound to protect those whom he taxes. But if any 
of the Egyptians refuse to accept the treaty, the 
tribute shall be reduced in proportion ; nevertheless 
we decline to give protection to those who refuse 
payment. If the Nile fails to rise to its full height 
in any year, the tax shall be abated in proportion to 
the level it reaches. All Romans and Nubians who 
come under this treaty of peace shall retain their 
possessions and shall be bound to pay the same 
taxes; but those who refuse and prefer to depart 
shall have a safe-conduct, until they leave our 
dominions and reach a place of security. The 
tribute is to be paid in three instalments, each 
instalment being a third of the total ^. Upon all 
within this document is the covenant of God and 
His protection, and the protection of His Apostle, 
and the protection of the Khalifah and Prince of 
the Faithful, and the protection of all the faithful. 
Nubians who come under this treaty are bound 
to help the Muslims with so many slaves and so 
many horses ; not to make raids into Egypt ; and 
not to hinder the passage of merchandise, going 
or coming. 

* This of course is incorrect. 

* This seems to be the meaning of the obscure passage— 



326 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

* Witnessed by Zubair and his two sons, ' Abdallah 
and Muhammad. Written by Wardan \' 

This form of treaty, though by no means inconsis- 
tent with the terms given by John of Nikiou, is not 
coextensive with them : one account in fact supple- 
ments the other. Yakut quotes Ibn 'Abd al Hakam 
as saying, *A11 Egypt was occupied by treaty, a 
tribute of two dinars a head being imposed on every 
man, with the understanding that it was not to be 
increased, while landowners also had to give a pro- 
portion of their produce. The Alexandrians, how- 
ever, had to pay poll-tax and land-tax, the amount 
to be determined at the will of the governor, because 
they were conquered by force of arms without treaty 
or compact.' Here again the second capture is con- 
fused with the first surrender of Alexandria. But 
the best discussion on the subject is to be found in 
Makrizi, who states the various views with great 
clearness, and cites the various authorities 2. The 

^ This treaty is preserved by Ibn Khaldiin, who quotes it from 
Tabart; but it does not seem to occur in Tabarfs extant account 
of the conquest of Egypt; see Zotenberg's edition, vol. iii. pp. 461 
seq. Nevertheless it is clear that Tabart makes Alexandria taken 
under capitulation. 

^ Khitatj vol. i. p. 294. Certain local treaties are named, but 
the Copts are said to have made in the general treaty six con- 
ditions : (i) that they should not be driven from their homes, 
(2) or parted from their wives, (3) or removed from their villages, 
(4) or deprived of their lands, (5) that the tribute should not be 
increased, and (6) that they should be protected from their enemies. 
These headings do not seem very accurate or logical, and nothing 
is said about religious freedom, which certainly came within the 
covenants. Zaid ibn Aslam is quoted as saying that Omar pos- 
sessed a box containing all the treaties, but there was none with 
Egypt; and Ibn Shihah avers that, although Egypt was taken 
partly by treaty and partly by force, yet Omar made the people 
in every part of the country a protected people. For example, 



Surrender of Alexandria 327 

evidence for the occupation by treaty is overwhelm- 
ing, and one may sum up the matter in the words 
of the old man who, on hearing it remarked that 
there was no treaty with the Egyptians, retorted, 
* He who says there was no treaty will forget to say 
his prayers.' 

when 'Abdallah ibn Sa*d wanted some land in Egypt, he paid 
purchase-money for it, on the ground that the country was occupied 
by treaty. MaHk ibn 'Anas, 'Abdallah ibn Lahi ah, and Nafi' ibn 
Yaztd assert that Egypt was taken by force of arms. Al Laith, 
*Abdallah ibn Abi Ja'far, Yahia ibn Aiyub, and others rightly main- 
tain the occupation by treaty. 



CHAPTER XXII 

REDUCTION OF THE COAST TOWNS 

'Amr sends news of the surrender to Omar. Its date. Cyrus 
breaks the news to the chief men in Alexandria. The arrival of 
Arab envoys makes it known to the populace. Their fury, and its 
appeasement. Criticism of Cyrus' treachery. The military position 
of Alexandria. Effect of He radius' death. Treaty ratified by 
Heraclonas. Building of the Muslim city of Fustat, and of the 
Mosque of *Amr. Restoration of Trajan's Canal. Campaign in 
the northern Delta. Capture of Ikhna, Balhib, Baralus, Damietta, 
Tinnts, Shata, &c. Story of Shata, and importance of the date. 
Historical fallacies once more refuted. 

When the treaty was duly completed, 'Amr called 
Mu awlah ibn Hudaij al Kindi, and told him to carry 
the news of the surrender to Omar^. Mu awlah 
asked for a letter, but 'Amr retorted, ' What, have 
I to do with a letter ? Are you not an Arab who 
can give a report of what you have witnessed ? ' 
So Mu awlah departed on his long desert journey, 
and, arriving at Medina at noonday, he made his 
camel kneel down at the door of the mosque and 
entered. While he was there, a maid came out of 
Omar's house, and, seeing a stranger with the marks 
of travel upon him, asked his name. He gave it, 
adding that he brought a message from 'Amr ibn 

^ The messenger's name is thus more correctly given by 
Balddhuri, but as Ibn Khadij by Makrizt, who tells the story 
apparently in connexion with the second capture of Alexandria. 
But Makrizi (or his authority Ibn Lahi'ah) says that Mu awiah's 
errand preceded *Amr's letter descriptive of Alexandria. That letter 
was written upon the first entry of the Arabs into the city. More- 
over, Omar was dead before the second capture. He was buried 
on ist Muharram, a. h. 24 = Nov. 7, 644 (Ibn al Athir, vol. iii. 
p. 38). The story therefore rightly falls where I have placed it. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 329 

al 'Asi. The maid went back to the house, but 
returned so hastily that Muawlah * heard the veil 
flapping against her feet' as she ran. She bade 
Mu awiah follow to the house, where Omar de- 
manded his news. ' Good news, O Commander of 
the Faithful,' was the answer ; ' God has opened 
Alexandria to us.' They went back at once to the 
mosque, where the muezzin called the people to- 
gether, and a service was held in thanksgiving. On 
returning to his house with Mu awiah, Omar said 
a further prayer, and then ordered bread and oil 
to be set before his guest, who was somewhat 
embarrassed and ate shyly. Dates were added to 
the repast, but there the Caliph's luxuries ended. 
When Muawiah excused himself for the rather 
tardy delivery of his message on the ground that 
he thought Omar would be taking his noontide rest, 
the Caliph answered, * Bad is what you said, and bad 
is what you thought. If I slept by day, I should lose 
my subjects : if I slept by night, I should lose myself. 
How can I sleep with these two reasons against it ?' 

So simply was the news delivered and received 
at Medina: very different was its reception in 
Alexandria. 

The Treaty of Alexandria was signed at Babylon 
on Thursday, November 8, 641 ^ It of course 

^ I have given the reasons for this date in the Appendix. 
Prof. Lane-Poole quotes from Tabart the statement of Ziydd that 
peace proposals reached 'Amr at Balhlb ; that they were referred 
to the Caliph ; and that the Muslims waited for his reply at the 
same place, BalMb. This story is most improbable as it stands ; 
it conflicts equally with Ibn Kutaibah and with John of Nikiou, 
who both bring *Amr to Babylon at this time; and it is hardly 
credible that 'Amr's army remained so long in that one position. 
The truth doubtless is that while the treaty was made at Babylon, 
its ratification was received from Omar at Balhib. 



330 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

required ratification by the Roman Emperor as 
well as by the Caliph Omar ; but the armistice of 
eleven months allowed ample time for all formalities. 
Cyrus now hastened back to the capital, bearing the 
treaty with him. 

His first care was to communicate the terms of 
the compact to the general Theodore, commander- 
in-chief, and to Constantine, general of militia. It 
is curious to find that, although Theodore bore the 
title of Augustal Prefect, he had no lot or part in 
the negotiations, and was not even present at Baby- 
lon. But Theodore's position altogether is puzzling. 
One cannot even say whether he was made privy to 
Cyrus' design of surrendering the city. If he was, 
he must have changed his mind and come over to 
the peace party: if he was not, it is strange that 
he should acquiesce so readily in what can only be 
called a shameful capitulation. 

Meanwhile news of the secret treaty passed in 
confidential whispers among the heads of depart- 
ments and the leading men in the capital. The 
populace were kept in ignorance ; but dispatches 
were sent to the Emperor Heraclonas, announcing 
the terms of surrender and recommending them for 
ratification. It seems that both the generals con- 
curred in this recommendation, and their concurrence 
must be held in some measure to exonerate Cyrus 
from responsibility, although Theodore's proved 
incompetence as military commander deprives his 
judgement upon the military situation of all real 
value. However, when Cyrus had prepared the 
ground in Alexandria, he summoned the chiefs of 
the army and of the civil government to a council. 
Headed by Theodore and Constantine, they came 
and presented their homage to the Patriarch, whom 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 331 

we must Imagine seated and robed in full pontificals. 
With his wonted skill he explained the terms of the 
treaty, enlarging upon Its necessity and its advan- 
tages, till he saw with melancholy triumph conviction 
carried to the minds of his hearers. 

Thus one more step was gained by Cyrus in his 
plans for the betrayal of Egypt. But the veil of 
mystery in which he had shrouded them could not 
last much longer. The disclosure to the people was 
made not by open avowal of Cyrus, or by the voice 
of rumour, but by the sudden appearance of an 
Arab force advancing towards the city. The alarm 
rang out, and from every quarter the people hastened 
to man the walls and towers. The Arabs rode 
forward unconcerned, while the Roman generals, 
who had now destroyed all fighting spirit in the 
army, tried to calm the people by arguing that 
further resistance was hopeless and impossible. Ere 
the Saracens came within range of the Roman 
artillery, they were seen to be bearing flags of 
truce. Answering signals were made : but when 
the Saracens stood within speaking distance, what 
was the amazement of the Romans to hear that the 
enemy had come, not to attack the city, but to receive 
the tribute agreed upon by Cyrus, Al Mukaukas, in 
the treaty which he had proposed and had signed 
for the capitulation of Alexandria. Furious and 
incredulous the mob tore through the streets 
towards the Archbishop's palace ; and when at 
last Cyrus appeared, for a moment his life was 
in danger, as the people ran upon him to stone 
him. 

His age and dignity saved the Archbishop. Stay- 
ing the rage of the people with a gesture, he found 
his tongue, and summoned all his eloquence to 



332 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

soften the public confession of his treason, and to 
justify his conduct. The action he had taken, he 
said, was forced upon him : no other course was 
possible in the interests of his hearers and of their 
children. The Arabs were irresistible : God had 
willed to bring the land of Egypt under their 
dominion. Either the Romans must come to terms, 
or they must see their streets deluged with blood, 
and after pillage and massacre the survivors must 
forfeit the remnant of their possessions. The 
capitulation secured life and property and religion. 
Besides, all who preferred to live under a Christian 
government were free to quit Alexandria. The 
alternatives of exile from Egypt and submission to 
Muslim rule were indeed bitter; and the Patriarch 
was moved to tears, as he besought the people 
to believe that he had done his best and to 
accept the treaty which he had made for their 
deliverance. 

Once more the sinister counsel of Cyrus prevailed. 
Popular opinion swung round Into agreement with 
the army, and consented to surrender the Great 
City to the Arabs on the terms of the treaty. 
The rioters felt ashamed of their outburst of anger 
against His Holiness the Archbishop, who had used 
his powerful intercession to save them from destruc- 
tion at the hands of their conquerors. So the citizens 
not only furnished the Instalment of tribute now de- 
manded, but added to it a large sum of gold. The 
money was placed on board a vessel, which passed 
out of the southern water-gate of the city, and was 
delivered by Cyrus himself to the Muslim com- 
mander ^. 

^ This is not stated in the text (p. 576), but it is given in the 
heading to ch. cxx on p. 358 of John of Nikiou's Chronicle. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 333 

Thus was sealed the surrender of Alexandria. 
A computation of dates makes it possible that this 
first payment of tribute took place on the first day 
of Muharram, A.H. 21 (December 10, 641). Although 
there is no specific authority for such a statement, 
Arab tradition fixes that day as the day of the 
conquest ; and the tradition may well have arisen 
from the impression made upon those present when 
the act of submission was performed by the first 
payment of tribute. It is true, nevertheless, that 
the Arabic authorities one and all make the ist 
Muharram fall on a Friday, whereas no ist Mu- 
harram fell on a Friday at this time, or nearer than 
645. It follows that the tradition cannot be true in 
its entirety, and it may therefore be altogether false : 
but it is so firmly rooted in the Arab lore of the 
conquest that it probably possesses some historical 
basis ^. In any case it is interesting to remark one 
more of those singular coincidences which emerge 
from, and partly explain, the confusion in the 
chron9logy of this period. It is this ; that, although 
some of the Arab historians insist that the fall of 
Alexandria took. place three years after the entry 
of 'Amr's army into Egypt, while others aver that 
both Babylon and Alexandria fell in the same year, 
viz. A.H. 20 ; yet, in spite of the apparent discrepancy, 
both sets of historians are right. Babylon sur- 
rendered in April, 641, and Alexandria in November, 
641, which dates both fall within a.h. 20: and on 
the other hand, while *Amr's invasion began in 
December, 639, his army did not actually occupy 

^ Mr. E. W. Brooks thinks that the date really applies to the 
second capture of Alexandria, which he would place on Friday, 
ist Muharram, a.h. 25, or October 28, 645. But I shall show 
reason against this theory in a later chapter. 



334 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Alexandria till three years later, in October, 642, at the 
end of the eleven months' armistice. It is pleasant 
to find truth behind such a veil of contradictions. 

But what is to be said of this amazing treaty of 
surrender ? Of the dark and subtle part played by 
Al Mukaukas or Cyrus, the Patriarch, of his strange 
intimacy with the leader of the Arabs, and of his 
strange anxiety all through the war to hasten the 
submission of Egypt, it is difficult to speak in 
measured language. The guilt of deliberate treason 
to the Roman Empire must remain an indelible 
stain on his memory, stained already by the folly 
and the brutality of the ten years' persecution. If 
from the moment of his appointment the Archbishop 
had bent all his powers to the single end of destroy- 
ing the Roman dominion over Egypt, he need not 
have swerved for a moment from the course he 
actually followed. But one is filled with wonder 
to see with what avidity he seized that opportunity 
of betraying Egypt which was mainly the result of 
his own scandalous misgovernment. It is no pallia- 
tion of his conduct to say that he had the formal 
authority of Heraclonas, the Emperor, for the capi- 
tulation. It was easy to talk over a weakling prince 
who knew nothing of Egypt, and whose policy 
answered every touch of the helm in his mother's 
hand. 

Moreover the treachery of Cyrus began months 
before at Babylon. This fact alone disposes of any 
defence on the ground of military necessity. True, 
the greater part of Egypt was now conquered ; but 
that was not true at the time of the abortive treaty 
of Babylon. Besides, Alexandria had not even been 
seriously menaced, nor had any of the coast towns 
fallen. When the Muslim army had first ventured 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 335 

to assault the capital, it was beaten off ignominiously, 
nor, as was hinted above, is there any reason to 
believe that it remained permanently encamped 
within sight of the city. This is clear both from 
the silence of John of Nikiou with regard to any 
such encampment, and from his statement that 
when a Muslim force was seen advancing — the force 
sent to receive the tribute — its appearance caused 
a stir of alarm in the city. No such commotion 
could have arisen if the Muslim army had been in 
daily view from the walls for some months, as the 
Arab writers allege. It is clear that here again 
they are confounding the first surrender of Alex- 
andria with the second capture, when there really 
was some kind of siege ; but this first surrender did 
not result from any military necessity \ 

^ One is sorry to dismiss all the romantic stories woven by Arab 
fancy into the siege of Alexandria, but there really is no alternative. 
The truth seems to come out in Suyuti's account of 'Amr's letter 
to Omar, which states that only twenty-two Muslims fell during 
the siege, although this letter is given as written after the second 
capture of the city. The well-known story of 'Amr and Warden 
being taken prisoners, during the repulse of a storming-party which 
had broken into the town, is a mere fable. Virtually the same story 
is told of the same warriors in reference to the siege of Damascus, 
and both anecdotes may be found in Eutychius, who winds up the 
siege of Alexandria by making the Arabs drive the Romans out of 
Alexandria by sea and by land. Another version of the story gives 
the same details, but sets them in the siege of Gazah in Palestine. 
The legend seems to come originally from the fairy tales of Ibn 
*Abd al Hakam. The Grand Mufti of Egypt remarks, in a note on 
Tabari with which he furnished the present writer, ' In this account 
also no mention is made of any battle of Alexandria, which, accord- 
ing to tradition, took place only after an uprising in the year 25/ 
and this is doubtless the truth. 

But it is interesting to note Abii Salih's remark (p. 76) that 
the number of Muslims slain in the conquest of Egypt, without 
reckoning those killed in the siege (what siege is uncertain), was 



336 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

It must be repeated that Alexandria was practi- 
call}^ impregnable to any force which 'Amr could 
bring against it. The total circuit of the walls was 
some nine or ten miles, of which about three rested 
on the sea, while lake, morass, and canal protected 
the greater part of the remainder. Since, then, 
only a very small section of the walls was open to 
attack, it was easy for the defenders to concentrate 
all their force in repelling an assault : and even if 
the Arabs could have put out of action the formi- 
dable engines on the ramparts, their rude methods 
would never have breached the walls. In fact there 
appears no instance in all the history of Alexandria 
in which the city was captured by storm without 
betrayal from ^yithin. 

Consequently, as long as the fleets of the Empire 
ruled the sea — and the Muslims had not yet dreamed 
of sea-power — there can have been no military reason 
for the treaty made by Cyrus. The army no doubt 
was disheartened by the fall of Babylon and by the 
remembrance that they had been beaten in every 
pitched battle during the campaign ; they knew also 
that their leaders were either cowardly or incapable. 
But all that might have been changed by fresh 
troops with fresh leaders and fresh spirit. The fact, 
however, is that since the death of Heraclius there 
was no longer a ruler able to weld or to wield the 
forces of the Empire. At Alexandria itself the 
population was split into groups so divided in 
sentiment and interest that a state of feud and riot 
was the normal state of society; but the death of 
Heraclius rent in two the central government, 
leaving nothing but a war of factions. ' It broke 

12,300 — a fair estimate for the various battles of that long 
campaign. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 337 

the strength of the Romans' In more ways than 
the Arab writer meant : for the great issue of the 
moment — the defence of the Empire — fell into 
abeyance. In the chaos wrought by the intrigues of 
Martina and the plots of Valentine Egypt was cast 
adrift ; and Alexandria, on which the fate of Egypt 
now depended, lost hope of any such help from 
without as would not merely save the city but clear 
the enemy out of the country. 

That at the time of the surrender there was no 
apparent prospect of the Romans taking the offen- 
sive and rolling back the invasion, may be granted. 
But Alexandria might have defied capture for two 
or three years at least ; and when once the sceptre 
was in firm hands again, the hope of recovering all 
Egypt would not be chimerical, though the blunders 
of the past had given the Muslims a grip on the 
country difficult to loosen. The military position 
was by no means past retrieval ; and though Cyrus 
could plead the moral weakness of the army and the 
political disunion of the people, nothing can acquit 
him of the charge of losing Egypt to the Empire. 
Alexandria should have been held at all costs : 
Cyrus delivered it to the enemy by a clandestine 
and gratuitous surrender. 

It remains a problem why the people of Alex- 
andria, who were ready to stone Cyrus for his 
treason, were so quickly prevailed upon to pardon 
him and to accept the treaty. Fickle and frivolous 
as the people were, it was no mere whim which 
decided them to abandon their allegiance to the 
Empire and to bow under the dominion of Islam. 
There can, I think, be but one explanation beyond 
those already suggested, and that is that the 
Alexandrians were wearied out both by the vicis- 



338 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

situdes and by the misgovernment which they had 
suffered during the past forty years, and that they 
hoped to find under Muslim rule a period of settled 
peace, of religious tolerance, and of lighter taxation. 
It may have been this relief from taxation which 
turned the scale : for while it is difficult to estimate 
the fiscal burdens borne under the Romans, there 
can be no doubt that the taxes were manifold and 
heavy, as well as vexatious, whereas the poll-tax 
and land-tax demanded by 'Amr had at least the 
charm of simplicity, directness, and fixity, and 
amounted, or seemed to amount, to less than the 
sums exacted for the imperial exchequer. In 
proportion as patriotism in Egypt was weak, the 
appeal to the purse was strong : and this promise of 
reduced taxation may count for a great deal in all 
the Muslim conquests. In the case of Alexandria 
it may have been the determining factor \ although 
it is known that the hope of financial relief was 
bitterly disappointed. 

The treaty was ratified — possibly by the last act 
of Heraclonas, whose reign ended that November. 
It seems that the terms were rehearsed in a pro- 
clamation now issued by 'Amr to the people of 
Egypt. The proclamation offered protection to the 
* person, property, religion, churches, and crosses * 
of the Egyptians, and promised to defend the 
people against Nubians and all other enemies on 
condition of payment of tribute 2. But neither the 

^ Mr. Milne in his Egypt under Roman Rule gives a good deal of 
information about the taxes, but does not make it clear what was 
the total of taxation payable by the Alexandrians or Egyptians at 
this time, nor whether Alexandria was still exempt from the Roman 
poll-tax as in the days of Josephus (p. 122). 

2 This proclamation is from Ibn Kathir (quoted by Abu '1 
Mahasin). Ibn Kathir says that it was made after the capture of 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 339 

news of the surrender of the Great City, nor the 
liberal nature of the terms offered, availed to para- 
lyse all further resistance. The cause of the Empire 
was now quite hopeless, with Alexandria under 
captivity, and it was the plainest unwisdom to reject 
the treaty : yet although the country as a whole 
came under it, some few towns in the north of the 
Delta stood loyal to their colours. These towns 
therefore had to be conquered before the campaign 
was over ; but ' Amr was free to move against them 
at a time of his own choosing. 

Meanwhile he had other work in hand at Babylon. 
He had resolved to build a new Muslim city in the 
plain which stretched from the Roman fortress to 
the Mukattam Hills, and which had been the scene 
of his encampment. This city is said by Baladhuri 
to have been planned by Zubair, who built himself 
a house, in which the ladder used in scaling the 
fortress was kept till it perished in a fire. Yakut, 
however, mentions four different persons ^ as directly 
appointed by *Amr to superintend the laying-out of 
the streets and quarters, which were assigned to 
different tribes of the Arabs. In any case it may 
be taken for granted that both the architect and the 
builders of the new town were Copts, no Arab as 
yet possessing the requisite art and knowledge. 
The name Fustat, by which the town became known, 
is clearly a foreign word, and it is a source of 

*Ain Shams : but this is a mere blunder. The terms he gives are 
exactly those of the Treaty of Alexandria, and he adds that all the 
people of Egypt accepted the conditions. Broadly speaking, this 
is true of the Treaty of Alexandria, but it is certainly untrue with 
regard to any other treaty, nor indeed was any treaty made at 
Heliopolis. 

^ Mu'awiah ibn Hudaij, Sharik ibn SummayyJ, *Amr ibn Kahzam,. 
and Jibril ibn Nashirah. 

Z 2 



340 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

perplexity to the Arab writers. They say generally 
that it* means either a tent^ of leather or skin, such 
as *Amr is said to have used, or else an assembling- 
place : one tradition even avers that every city is 
a fustat. But Yaktit gives six ways of pronouncing 
the word ^, and its connexion with the tent of *Amr 
and the story of the dove's nest has at least an 
element of truth. For the form Fussdt takes us 
back at once to the Byzantine (poo-a-arov (the Roman 
fossatuni) which was in common use at the time of 
the conquest in the sense of camp. The Romans 
at Babylon naturally spoke of the place where 
*Amr s army encamped as the (poa-a-arov^ and the 
Arabs learned the word from them. It is strange 
that this explanation should appear novel ^ 

^ Abu Salih casts doubt on this interpretation. He says, * It was 
called Fustat, or the meeting-place of the people, and the Arabs 
did not put up a tent, not being acquainted with the use of tents ' 

(P- 14)' 

^ Fustat, Fistat, Fussat, Fissat, Fustat, and Fastat. In support 
of the theory that the name comes from the Roman * fossatum,' 
see Sophocles' Byzantine Lexicon, s.v. (fjocrcraTov. The term might 
have been heard by the Arabs in Syria as well as at the fortress of 
Babylon. It would be used mainly in connexion with a fortified 
city, and this association may account for the fact that some Arab 
writers actually say that 'fustdt' means a city. See Makrizi, 
Khitat, vol. i. p. 296. The tradition referred to in the text is given 
by Yakfit, who writes : * A tradition says, " You are bound to assemble 
together, for the hand of God is upon the fustat," meaning the town 
in which men assemble : so every town is a fustat.* Ibn al Fakih 
says that Bosrah was called Fustat. 

^ Dr. Wallis Budge in his little book called The Nile, p. 112 
(T. Cook & Son, London, 1890), gets near the truth. But although 
in a note he remarks, 'Arab. J<3lklS, another form of Jollj = Byzantine 
Greek <f)0(raaTov,* yet in the text he says, ' Fostat means a tent.' It 
is questionable whether the Arabs used tents for military purposes 
at this time : but apart from that doubt, the meaning of camp is so 
strongly founded on both historical and philological reason as to be 
virtually incontestable. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 341 

It is very unlikely that at first the town of 
Fustdt was laid out on any large scale or with any 
idea of making it the Muslim capital ^ The troops 
in the fortress were too cramped for either health or 
pleasure, and it was not lawful or not desirable to 
dispossess the people of Misr of their houses. Con- 
sequently, as all fear of further war in this part of 
the country was removed, the Arabs could build 
outside the walls of Babylon quite unmolested. 
From small beginnings the town had a rapid growth 
when, a year later, Omar refused *Amr permission 
to retain the seat of government at Alexandria. 
Fustat Misr — for it was called by the double name — 
soon spread over the whole area now^ occupied by 
the rubbish mounds south of Cairo, and became the 
recognized capital of Egypt. Outside the city of 
Fustat to the northw^ard later arose the suburb of 
Al 'Askar, to which the central power was attracted. 
Further north again Al Katai* was founded by 
Ahmad ibn Tulun, and all the rulers of the Tulunide 
dynasty had their palaces in that quarter^. After 

^ The date of the foundation of Fustat is of course disputed. 
Baladhuri seems to place it after the capture of Babylon, while 
most of the other Arab writers place it after the occupation of 
Alexandria and the Caliph's refusal to allow 'Amr to reside in 
Alexandria. It seems probable that the town was begun after the 
surrender of Alexandria at the time given in the text, and that later 
it assumed the dimensions and importance of a capital city, when 
Omar had pronounced against Alexandria. Weil, I think, is 
mistaken in putting the first building of Fustat after the Muslim 
entry into Alexandria, as he certainly is in the statement that 
Alexandria ' fell by the sword.' Abu '1 Mahasin says very clearly, 
* 'Amr founded Fustat in a.h. 21 after the taking of Alexandria,' and 
the winter of 641-2 after Dec. 10 falls in a. h. 21. 

^ The name Katai' means ' landed estates ' or * fiefs.' Quatre- 
m^re translates from Makrizi a very interesting description of the 
quarter called by this name and of the fine buildings it contained 



342 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the Tulunides, Al *Askar regained for a while its 
preeminence, until it was finally discrowned towards 
the end of the tenth century, in the time of the 
Fatimides, by the building of Misr al Kahirah — 
Misr the Victorious, or Cairo as it was called by the 
Venetians, who passed on the epithet instead of 
the name to Europe. 

A little to the north of the ruined Roman fortress 
there stands to this day the venerable mosque of 
*Amr — the oldest mosque in Egypt. It is a familiar 
object to travellers, and no description of it is here 
necessary. But it seems probable that the first 
foundation of the original mosque took place in this 
same winter of 641-2 ^ The spot chosen was that 
on which *Amr had set up his standard and which 
came to be called the Place of the Standard^. It 
lay among orchards and vineyards^ close to the 
bank of the river *, and it had been occupied by one 
Abu *Abdarrahman Kaisabah ibn Kulthum, but at 
the request of 'Amr he surrendered it as a free gift 
for all the Muslims. A common place of worship 
was their first necessity ; but the original mosque of 
*Amr was a very simple building. Its dimensions 
were only fifty cubits by thirty : the roof was very 

{Mem. Geog. et Hist. t. ii. pp. 458 seq.); and a description of Al 
'Askar precedes it (p. 452). 

* Both Yakfit and Abii '1 Mahasin give this date (a. h. 21). 

* This is from YaMt. The account which makes it the place 
of 'Amr's standard and not of his tent is the more probable, and 
renders the derivation of Fustat from (fjoa-a-arov even more certain. 

^ Ibn *Abd al Hakam, quoted by Suyuti. 

* See Quatremere, Mem. Geog. et Hist. t. i. pp. 7 1 seq. Hamaker 
{Expugnatio Memphidis, p. 132 of notes) refutes Wakidi's state- 
ment that the mosque was founded on the site of a Christian 
church. The error doubtless arose from the fact that in the later 
structure some columns were employed obviously taken from 
Christian buildings. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 343 

low : there was an open space in front of the 
mosque, but no courtyard, and a roadway round it : 
six doors gave access to the building. It soon 
proved too small for the congregation, who had to 
sit in rows in the open space. The kiblah is said 
to have been built by eight ^ of the Prophet's 
companions, chief among them being Zubair, Al 
Kaddad ibn al Aswad, and *Ubadah ibn as Samit. 
It had a more direct orientation than the present 
kiblah. When the building was finished, a minbar 
or pulpit was placed in it, and from this *Amr used 
to hold forth 2, until Omar rebuked him for exalting 
himself above the heads of his fellow believers, and 
ordered its destruction. The first additions to the 
mosque were made c. 673 a.d.^ by Maslamah ibn 
Mukhallad, who made an extension on the north 
side, substituted mats for the pebble pavement, 
built a turret at each angle, added minarets, on 
which his own name was inscribed, and increased 
the number of muezzins, ordering them also to 
chant the call to prayer at daybreak instead of 
beating the wooden gong* as heretofore. About 

•^ Suyfiti. Other writers say thirty or even eighty. 

"^ Abft '1 Mahasin quotes from Ibn *Abd al Hakam a long report 
of a sermon preached by *Amr. It is at least an interesting 
composition. 

5 Yakut and Suyutt give a.h. 53, while Abii '1 Mahasin writes 
A. H. 63 — by a slip, doubtless. 

* The nakfis or wooden gong was in use by the Christians prior 
to the use of bells, and remains in use to this day in many Muslim 
countries, where bells are disliked or forbidden. Its discontinuance 
by the Egyptian Muslims is recorded by Abft '1 Mahasin. The 
nakfis was sometimes made of metal — a plate of iron or copper 
suspended by strings. See Vansleb, Hisioire de T^glise d'AIexan- 
drte, p. 59; "Bwilev, Ancient Coptic Churches, vol. ii. pp. 79-80; 
Pereira, Vida do Abba Daniel, p. 50, n. i ; and Hamaker, Expugnatio 
Memphidis, pp. 166 seq., where the matter is treated at great length. 



344 T^^^ Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the year 696 ^ *Abd al 'Aziz pulled down a portion 
of 'Amr s mosque — or possibly only the extension — 
and rebuilt it : and somewhat later in 711^ the 
Caliph Walid ibn *Abd al Malik wrote to Kurrah 
ibn Sharlk, the governor of Egypt, ordering him 
to pull down the whole of the mosque and rebuild 
it. It was then that the mosque took in the main 
the form which it still preserves ^, although several 
subsequent alterations are recorded *. 

Of the domestic architecture at Fustat some few 
details are known. The houses were chiefly of brick, 
and soon rose to a height of four or five stories. 
We must picture large irregular piles of building, 
with Roman columns used freely as supports, but 
possessing no merit of design and little ornament — 
precisely such buildings as may be seen, or might 
be seen twenty years ago, still standing in Rosetta. 
Some of these blocks at Fustat are said to have 

^ A.H. 77. 
2 A.H. 92. 

' So says Suyuti, writing circa 1500 a. d. There has certainly 
been no material alteration since that date. 

* It was enlarged in 750 when Salih ibn 'Alt was governor of 
Egypt, and again in the days of Harfin ar Rashid, c. 791. Further 
additions were made in 826 by 'Abdallah ibn Tahir, and in 871 by 
Abii Ayub Ahmad ibn Muhammad : but the additions of *Abdallah 
ibn Tahir were destroyed in 884 by a fire and replaced by the 
magnificent Sultan Khamarawaih. Various improvements were 
made in the tenth century, but the mad Caliph Al Hakim disfigured 
the mosque by removing the mosaics and replacing them with white- 
wash. The reader is referred for further details to a very full 
history and description of the mosque of'Amr given in an admirable 
paper by Mr. E. K. Corbett in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic 
Society for Oct. 1890, vol. xxii. N. S. The article is accompanied 
by plans and illustrations. There is also an extremely close and 
interesting account of the mosque in Ibn Dukmak (pt. iv. pp. 59-67), 
whose MS. was discovered and published subsequently to the 
appearance of Mr. Corbett's article. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 345 

contained as many as two hundred people, and the 
ground floor was seldom inhabited. Kharijah ibn 
Hudhafah, the well-known lieutenant of *Amr, is 
said to have been the first to have a balcony or 
loggia built: but Omar on hearing of it wrote to 
'Amr that it could only be for the purpose of spying 
out the secrets of the neighbours, and that it must 
be taken down. Baths also were built at Fustat, but 
they were called at once Hammam al Far, or the 
Mouse Baths, owing to their ridiculous smallness 
in comparison with the splendid baths of the 
Romans. 

Besides houses and baths and a mosque, a grave- 
yard was necessary. A curious legend is told that 
Cyrus, the Mukaukas, offered 'Amr 70,000 dinars for 
a plot of ground by the ravine at the foot of the 
Mukattam hills ; and when he was pressed to give 
his reason for offering so large a sum, he replied 
that, according to the ancient writings, this was the 
Plantation of Paradise. Omar settled the matter 
by remarking that he knew of no Plantation of 
Paradise save the ground in which believers are 
buried. The request of Cyrus was refused : the 
ground was marked out as the Muslim burial-place : 
and in after years *Amr himself and four other of 
the Prophet's companions were there laid to rest. 

The other great work which 'Amr seems now to 
have undertaken was the excavation of Trajan's 
Canal ^. This ancient waterway, which had left the 

^ In placing the excavation of Trajan's Canal in this winter 641-2 
I am running counter to Al Kindt, who says it took place in a. h. 23, 
which year begins in Nov. 643. But it is known that, before the 
death of Omar in Dhii '1 Hijjah, a. h. 23, Egyptian vessels were 
landing their cargoes in Arabia, and it is scarcely conceivable that 
the whole length of the canal could have been cleared out and 
rendered serviceable in less than a year. Of course it is possible 



346 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Nile a little to the north of Babylon, and, passing by 
Heliopolis and the Wadi Tumilat to Al Kantarah, 
had joined the Red Sea at Kulzum \ had silted up 
through long neglect under the Romans. It was 
of far more ancient date than the time of Trajan, 
who merely restored it to utility, as *Amr proposed 
doing. Indeed, as Weil shows ^, part of it at least 

that the work was done in the previous winter 642-3 ; but that date 
is unlikely, because *Amr was then engaged in the expedition to 
Pentapolis. Moreover it can scarcely be doubted that John of 
Nikiou means to place this work in the winter 641-2. At least he 
seems to speak of it as begun during the Hfe of Cyrus and before 
the expedition to Pentapolis ; and although it is true that he makes 
it come after the Muslims had taken full possession of the country, 
it is clear that John regards that possession as effective before the 
death of Cyrus, and therefore at this period. The argument from 
order in John's disordered narrative may be worth little (pp. 577-8) 
in itself, and it might be argued that the Arabs were not placed in 
full possession of the country by the Treaty of Alexandria. This 
is true to the letter, but for all practical purposes possession was 
complete, save in the extreme north of the Delta. Moreover, 
Baladhuri's authority is in favour of the earlier date. For he says 
(p. 216) that in the year of famine, a.h. 21, Omar wrote ordering 
*Amr to send the tribute paid in kind, i.e. corn and other produce, 
to Medina hy sea, and it so continued to be sent with some inter- 
mission until the reign of Abfi Ja'far al Mansur. This does not 
prove that the canal was open in a.h. 21 (ends Nov. 29, 642), but 
it does prove that *Amr felt in that year the advantage of a con- 
tinuous waterway to the sea. On the whole therefore, in spite of 
Weil, the evidence seems in favour of the commencement of the 
work being made early in 642. Possibly it was not finished before 
643 : but, as Weil points out, Ibn *Abd al Hakam's very detailed 
account of Omar's journey to Jar, the port of Medina, to see the 
arrival of the ships from Egypt, proves that the canal was in full 
working order some time before his death in Nov. 644. Possibly 
the canal "^2,% finished in the winter 643-4, and used at the following 
flood of the Nile for the first time. 

^ See Quatrem^re, Me'm. Geog. et Hist. t. i. pp. 176 seq. 

^ Geschichte der Chaltfen, i. pp. 130 seq. Weil refers to Hdt. ii. 
158, Mannert's Geographie der Gr. und Romer, x. i S., pp. 503 seq.. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 347 

was laid out by Pharaoh Necho, who also pierced 
the Isthmus of Suez from sea to sea. In the time 
of Ptolemy Philadelphus II the canal was repaired 
and reinstated, but it was made to branch off the 
Nile at Phacusa instead of Bubastis. The date at 
which the waterway was cut from near Babylon to 
Bubastis is uncertain : but this channel was not 
wholly successful, being available for use only at 
high Nile ; and for want of proper care it became 
unnavigable some time after the second century of 
our era. The mere drift of the sand would soon 
choke up the bed, when once it was neglected : and 
it is alleged that the line of the waterway was so 
lost, that it had to be pointed out to *Amr by a 
Copt, whose services were rewarded by exemption 
from tribute. On the other hand, the rapidity with 
which the excavation was accomplished must be 
taken to show that some sections of the course of 
ninety miles were still in fair order, although it is 
true that rapid results were accomplished by the 
vast gangs of natives, who were driven like slaves 
to the work and kept at it by taskmasters, according 
to the custom in vogue from time immemorial. 
The Arabs indeed seem to have applied this system 
of forced labour with exceptional rigour : insomuch 
that the Egyptian bishop is betrayed into very 
strong language : ' The yoke they laid on the 
Egyptians was heavier than the yoke which had 
been laid on Israel by Pharaoh. Him God judged 
by a righteous judgement by drowning him in the 

and Letronne in Revue des Deux Mondes, xxvii. 215. There is 
also some information to be found in Abfi Salih, pp. 172-3 and 
notes, and p. 88 n. The bed of the canal where it passed through 
what is now Cairo has recently been filled up, and is occupied by 
an electric tramway. 



34& The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Red Sea after He had sent many plagues both on 
men and cattle. When God's judgement lights 
upon these Muslims, may He do unto them as He 
did aforetime unto Pharaoh ^ ! ' Yet it would seem 
that this great severity was rather incidental to the 
period of conquest than a permanent characteristic 
of *Amr's government. 

It is related that 'Amr contemplated excavating 
a branch canal from Lake Timsah northward to 
join the Mediterranean, so that the whole isthmus 
would be pierced as now by a waterway : but Omar 
forbade the design on the ground that the Romans 
would then be able to sail through into the Red 
Sea and stop the pilgrimages. This story deserves 
all credence. 

But these works of peace did not altogether divert 
the Arab commander's attention from military 
matters. Although the Treaty of Alexandria had 
practically completed the subjugation of the country, 
there were still a few towns in the north of the 
Delta, particularly on the sea-coast, which refused 
to be bound by it. Against these 'Amr was entitled 
to proceed even during the armistice ; and there 
seems no doubt that he sent an expedition to reduce 
them in the spring of 642. The movements of the 
Arab army are, however, difficult to follow. On 
this phase of the conquest John of Nikiou sheds 
no light whatever; while the details given by the 
Arab writers, who are our only authorities, are hard 
to correlate or to understand. 

It may, however, be conjectured that the army 
set out from Kariun and moved along the coast 
eastward. In what was known as the western 
Hauf there was a town called Ikhna, not far from 

^ John of Nikiou, p. 578. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 349 

Alexandria ^ Talami, the governor of Ikhna, had 
received from *Amr a dispatch communicating the 
terms of peace agreed upon with Cyrus ; but being 
dissatisfied, he is said to have sought an interview 
with *Amr and inquired about the amount of the 
poll-tax. The Arab chief, irritated by the discussion, 
pointed to a neighbouring church and exclaimed, 
* If you filled that building with gold to the roof, 
I would not define the amount of the poll-tax. You 
are our treasury, and if you give us abundant 
supplies, we shall treat you liberally, but if we are 
in want, we shall make heavy demands upon you ^.^ 
Talama naturally resented this language and decided 
not to surrender ; and it was against Ikhna accord- 
ingly that the Muslims now marched. But the town 
was soon forced to capitulate : and, although it 
yielded under a written treaty, many prisoners were 
taken and sent to Omar at Medina. A like fate befell 
Balhib ^ which was a strong place a few miles south 
of Rosetta : and it was here apparently that *Amr 
received Omar s ratification of the Treaty of Alex- 
andria ^ In the Caliph's letter, which was read out 

* Yakiit, vol. i. p. i66. I am unable to identify Ikhna on 
modern maps or lists of villages. 

2 This language is so totally at variance with the solemn agree- 
ment fixing the poll-tax and making it unalterable, that if it was 
used at all at this stage, it can only have been uttered as an ill- 
humoured jest. But it is far more reasonable to suppose that the 
words were spoken later, when Ikhna was reduced to the last 
extremity and had to capitulate. In that case the words were better 
justified, as 'Amr was not bound by the Treaty of Alexandria, 
which the conquered town had rejected. 

^ See n. i, p. 289 supra. Baladhurt calls this place Balhit — 
a mistake reproduced by Abu 1 Mah^sin and Suyuti — but Yakut 
gives it correctly. 

^ I have already shown reasons for disagreeing with the story of 
Balhib as given on p. 10 of Prof. Lane-Poole's Egypt in the Middle 



350 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

before the troops, instructions were given that all 
prisoners who chose to adopt Islam should be set 
at liberty and received as brothers. The story is 
that a great number of the captives went over to 
the Muslim religion, their decision being hailed with 
shouts of triumph by the Arabs. But a sudden and 
wholesale conversion of this kind was certainly an 
unusual, if not an unparalleled event. If made, it 
was clearly made under the strongest pressure of 
worldly motive by men of easy convictions : prob- 
ably, however, the story is greatly exaggerated. 

In close connexion with Ikhna, treaties of peace 
are recorded as made with Kuzman (perhaps Cos- 
mas), governor of Rosetta, and with John, governor 
of Baralus \ From Baralus it would seem as if the 
Arab forces still followed the coast line till they 
came to Damietta^. John, the governor, offered 
no further resistance to the Arabs, who now con- 
trolled all the outlets of the Nile. Khais, in the 
region called the Hauf near Damietta, was also 

Ages. Both on geographical and on historical grounds it is quite 
impossible that 'Amr can have spent the time of the armistice here. 

* Rosetta of course commanded the entrance to the western 
branch of the Nile, and Balhib commanded the waterway from the 
Rosetta branch towards Alexandria. Baralus (napaXoy) was a town 
at the Sebennytic mouth of the Nile, and both town and district 
retain the name to this day, although the Sebennytic channel has 
long since been choked, forming a lake which is only parted from 
the sea by a narrow strip of sand. Ikhn^, Rosetta, and Baralus are 
mentioned together by Makrtzt. 

^ The submission of Damietta is mentioned by Baladhuri, who 
says, nevertheless, that the expedition to Tinnis, Damietta, Tftnah, 
Damirah, Shata, Dakahlah, Bana, and Bustr was under 'Umair ibn 
Wahb al Jumahi. It seems more probable that the command was 
entrusted to a lieutenant. Baladhuri does not record any fighting, 
but says that 'Umair made terms with the people of these places 
on the same conditions as those of the general treaty. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 351 

reduced to submission ^ : and it is probable that the 
whole country of the Delta was now subjugated 
with the exception of some towns which stood on 
islands in the vast but shallow waters of Lake 
Manzalah. 

A century before the Arab conquest ^ this region, 
now covered by flood, had been unrivalled in Egypt, 
save perhaps by the Fayiim, for its climate, its 
fertility, and Its wealth. Gardens, palm-groves, 
vineyards, and cornlands were watered by never- 
failing streams from the Nile, and flourished in great 
luxuriance. But the sea broke through the line of 
sandhills, which served as a rampart, and year by 
year encroached further, till it swamped all the low- 
lying land, leaving only a number of islands lifted 
above the flood. Tilth and villages were swept 
away, though a number of towns stood high enough 
to escape the devastation. Of these the most famous 
was Tinnis — a town of some magnitude and archi- 

^ The Arab authorities differ considerably about the names of 
the resisting towns. Baladhuri gives Balhit (Balhtb), Khais, and 
Sultais in one place, and in another, as we have seen, he names 
Sakha, Balhit, Khais, and Sultais as assisting the Roman army at 
the battle of Suntais. To this list Yakut adds Fartasa, and he 
remarks that ' when *Amr had taken Alexandria he made captives 
of the people of those towns, and sent them to Medina.' Yakut 
gives the position of Khais. Makrizt records written treaties with 
Ikhna, Rosetta, Baralus, Sultais, Masil, and Balhib ; so does Suyutt. 
As to Khais, this must be the town which Yakut (vol. ii. p. 507) 
describes as in the western Hauf and as being taken by Kharijah 
ibn Hudhafah, and the western Hauf is described as being towards 
Damietta, the eastern towards Syria. The Khais in the description 
quoted by Quatremere {Mem. Geog. et Hist. t. i. p. 337) would 
seem to lie east of Pelusium, and to be therefore a different place. 

"^ In the year 251 of the Coptic era. For all this information 
about the lake towns see Quatremere, Mem. Geog. et Hist. t. i. 
pp. 287 seq. Quatremere translates at some length from Makrizi 
and Mas'udf. 



352 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

tectural beauty, with an enormous manufacture of 
the finest textiles. Other towns on the lake, like 
Tunah, Damirah and Dablk, boasted the skill of 
their weavers, but they could not compare with 
Tinnts, which ranked with Damietta and Shata for 
the richness and delicacy of its fabrics. Only at 
Tinnis and Damietta could the weavers produce 
a robe of pure linen worth loo dinars (50 guineas) : 
while Mas*udt records a garment made for the 
Caliph in a single seamless piece costing 1,000 
dinars. This was woven of gold thread with an 
extremely small admixture of fine linen. It is also 
on record that the trade of Tinnts with Irak alone 
amounted to between 20,000 and 30,000 dindrs 
yearly before it was crushed by vexatious tariffs. 

Tinnis stood on an island^ of considerable size, 
and was reached from the south by a channel called 
Bahr ar Rum, which may have been identical with 
the Tanitic branch of the river and ran to Salahtah. 
There was also easy and direct communication by 
water with Pelusium, or at least with Tinah its 
harbour. Even as late as the tenth century Tinnis 
is said to have possessed many ancient monu- 
ments, besides 160 mosques, each adorned with 
a lofty minaret, 72 churches, and 36 baths ; and its 
fortified walls had 19 gates, all heavily plated with 
iron^. From other islands the dead are said to 

* Quatremere thinks the name of the town is derived from vriao^ 
— with the Coptic feminine article prefixed. If so, this part of the 
country must have been flooded long before the sixth century. 
Indeed Cassian, who was in Egypt in 390-7 a.d., says definitely 
that ' Thinnesus ' is so beset on all sides with sea or salt marshes, 
that the people were wholly dependent on sea traffic, and they had 
to bring soil in barges when they wanted to make more building- 
ground. 

^ Quatremere, 1. c, p. 329. Yet the dimensions of the town are 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 353 

have been ferried acfoss the lake for burial at 
Tinnis, where they seem to have been embalmed. 
A century later the Persian traveller, Nasiri 
Khusrau^, who visited Tinnis in 1047 ^-^^-j is amazed 
at its prosperity. He speaks of 10,000 shops 
and 50,000 male inhabitants. A thousand vessels 
were moored at the island, which grew nothing, and 
depended on trade for all provisions. The rise of 
the Nile swept away the girdling flood of salt 
water, and filled the vast underground cisterns and 
reservoirs with sweet water enough to last for a 
year. The splendid coloured stuffs woven by the 
Copts were of more value than ever. In the Sultan's 
looms fabrics were woven for him alone; a single 
turban cost 4,000 dinars ; but these fabrics were never 
put on the market. The Roman Emperor offered 
a hundred cities in exchange for Tinnis, but was 
refused. Besides these royal textiles, a fabric was 
woven called bukalimun — a shot silk of lustre so fine 
that it was said to change colour every hour of the 
day. But the steel cutlery of Tinnis was almost as 
famous as the products of its looms ; and altogether 
it was a place of curious interest and great im- 
portance. 

There is a legend that the governor of Tinnis 
at the time of the conquest was a Christian Arab 
named Abu Tiar, who went out at the head of an 
army of 20,000 Copts, Romans, and Arabs to fight 
the Muslims on their advance against Tinnis after 
the capture of Damietta 2. Several engagements 

given as about a square mile only — an obvious error. Tinnis was 
destroyed in a. h. 624, nothing but ruins remaining. The island 
is still called by the same name, and there are ancient remains 
upon it. 

^ See Sefer Nameh, ed. C. Schefer, pp. no seq. 

"^ Quatremere, I.e., p. 307, quoted from Masudl. The Arab 

BUTLER A a 



354 ^^^ Arab Conquest of Egypt 

were fought before the Muslims were able to rout 
the Christian army and to capture its commander. 
The surrender of Tinnls followed : and after the 
division of the spoil the Muslim army moved on to 
Farama. Whatever proportion of truth and error 
this story may contain, two things are fairly certain — 
that Tinnls came under the Muslim dominion at 
this time, and that its industrial activities were not 
directly impaired by the conquest. Neither here 
indeed nor at Ttinah, Biird, Dabtk, or the other 
islands lost in the blue expanses of Lake Manzalah, 
was there anything to attract Muslim settlers, and 
it may safely be said that this region remained 
almost exclusively Christian for a long time sub- 
sequently ^. Its disappearance from history can be 
dated. 

force must have come by water, and it is absurd to suppose that the 
governor of Tinnts could muster 20,000 men or transport them 
over the lake. But numbers in Arabic documents are seldom to 
be taken literally, and one should doubtless read 2,000. Of course 
Abii Tiir may be a mere invention of legend. There is no other 
record of any Christian Arab leader in Egypt. This story, how- 
ever, appears in an early Arab writer, and though it is dated 
300 years after the alleged event, yet Mas'udi himself appears to 
be quoting from a lost History of Damietta. 

^ About the year 824 a. d. Dionysius, Patriarch of Antioch, was 
driven by stress of weather into the harbour of Tanis, where 30,000 
Christians are said to have met him with great rejoicing. He was 
welcomed by the Patriarch of Alexandria and a number of bishops, 
who remarked that no Patriarch of Antioch had visited Egypt 
since the days of Severus. Dionysius, with a better historical 
memory, reminded them of Athanasius' visit, which took place 
early in the seventh century, and of the formal union then effected 
between the two Churches. See Barhebraeus, Chron, Ecct t. i. 
c. 360. 

By the harbour of Tanis must be meant the harbour at the mouth 
of the Tanitic branch of the Nile. It would of course be nearer 
to Tinnts than to the city of Tanis, which is much further inland. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 355 

The island of TInnis was much exposed to raids 
from the sea, though it was always strongly garri- 
soned, and in the year 11 92 Saladin ordered its 
evacuation. A few years later, in 1227, Malik al 
Kamil had its forts and walls razed to the ground, 
and it became a mere heap of ruins ^ 

There is another anecdote relating to the conquest 
of this region, which claims at least some notice. 
Makrizt in speaking of Shata describes it as a town 
which lies between Tinnis and Damietta, and which 
legend avers to be named from one Shata, son of 
Al Hamiik, the uncle of the Mukaukas^. This 
derivation is pure romance : but the story goes on 
to say that when the Arabs laid siege to Damietta 
and captured it, Shata, who was governor of the 
town, went out at the head of 2,000 men and 
declared his adherence to Islam — a religion which 
he had long studied with interest. When he saw 
that the Arabs encountered prolonged resistance at 
Tinnis, Shat^ collected and armed a force from 
the towns of Baralus, Damtrah, and Ashmiin-Tanah ; 

The modern Arab name of Tanis is San or San al Hajar. The 
position of the harbour is still marked on the coast about half way 
between Port Said and Pelusium. 

^ A good description of the ruins is given in Ghillebert de . 
Lannoy's (Euvres Recueillies et Puhlie'eSy par Ch. Potvin, Louvain, 
1878, pp. 138-9, quoted by Schefer, 1. c. 

2 Wakidi gives the name (p. 130) as c^l^ll (Al Hdmirak), 
perhaps more correctly. It is of course impossible to credit for 
a moment these details about the relations of Al Mukaukas. The 
myths about his so-called daughter and wife have already been 
rejected as wholly unfounded, and his uncle and cousin must be 
dismissed with as little ceremony. Cyrus cannot have had any 
relations in Egypt, unless he brought them with him. 

As a matter of fact Shata lies near to Damietta on the east, but 
is a long way from Tinnis. But the ancient Tamiatis, here intended, 
was some distance further north. 

A a 2 



35^ The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

then, joining his levies to the Arab reinforce- 
ments sent by 'Amr, he marched Against the enemy. 
In a battle which followed Shata displayed brilliant 
valour, slaying with his own hand twelve of the 
foremost captains of Tinnls : but he fell in the thick 
of the combat and was buried outside the town, 
where, says Makrizl, * his tomb is still shown, and is 
still frequented on the day of his death, 15th Shaban, 
by pilgrims from all the country round ^* 

Now it would be easy to destroy nearly the whole 
of this story. The town of Shata was so named 
long before the Arab conquest, when it was already 
famed for the fineness and splendour of its textiles. 
Moreover we know from John of Nikiou that the 
governor of Damietta at this time was not called 
Shata at all, but John ^. And lastly, the relationship 
of Shat^ to Al Mukaukas is clearly apocryphal. But 
though the personality of Shata is legendary, there 
is one circumstance which redeems the story from 
fiction, and that is the date. For the Arab historian 
gives the day of the hero's death as Friday, 15th 
Shaban, a.h. 21. This corresponds to July 19, 642, 
and the date is one that cannot be shaken. For in 
the first place, the year 642 is the year postulated 
by the whole course of this history ; and in the next 
place July 19 in that year did in fact fall on a 
Friday. Such a double coincidence is very rare, 
but where it occurs the date must be absolutely 

^ Quatremere, 1. c, p. 339. It is not quite clear whether 
Makrizi means that the warrior was buried at Tinnis or at Shata. 
It would seem, however, that the place where he fell would be the 
place of his burial, and this is the more likely because the battle took 
place in the heat of summer. I may add that the story of Shata is 
also given by Wakidi in very similar terms, text pp. 130 seq., 
147-8, and notes 179, 190). 

^ John of Nikiou, pp. 561 and 584. 



Reduction of the Coast Towns 357 

authentic : and it is further confirmed by the fact 
of the yearly pilgrimage, lasting even to the time 
of Makrizl. It may therefore be taken as proved 
that a battle took place on the date in question 
close to Tinnis on the island, and that a Roman or 
Coptic general from Shata was slain after greatly 
distinguishing himself while fighting on the side of 
the Muslims. 

This date is both interesting and important, 
because it shows to what a length of time resistance 
to the Saracens was protracted in the Delta, even 
after the surrender of Alexandria. And when it is 
remembered how intensely Coptic in sentiment were 
the people of Tinnis and all this region of the lake, 
it will not be denied that the record of the battle at 
this date gives one more shock to those twin time- 
honoured fallacies — that * Egypt fell almost without 
striking a blow ' and that * the Copts welcomed the 
Arabs as deliverers.' The betrayal of Alexandria 
by Cyrus must have extinguished the last hope of 
triumph for the Christian cause in Egypt; and it is 
astonishing that nevertheless these isolated com- 
munities in the Delta should have held out for 
nearly a year longer. It argues in them a stubborn 
courage and a devotion to their religion, for which 
history has too long refused them the due meed of 
honour. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

END OF THE ROMAN DOMINION 

Roman withdrawal from Upper Egypt. Refugees in Alexandria. 
Action of Cyrus. His loss of influence and fears for his safety. 
His depression and death. Story of the poisoned ring. Roman 
officials retained in office. Appointment of Cyrus' successor in the 
patriarchate. Gloom in the capital. Evacuation of Alexandria by 
the Roman army under Theodore. 

Long before the last embers of hostility were thus 
smothered in the Delta, the reduction of .Upper 
Egypt, at least as far as the Thebaid, seems to 
have been completed by a separate Arab column 
under Kharijah ibn Hudhafah. The Nile valley 
had been denuded of Roman troops, with very few 
exceptions, during the previous year, 641 ; and the 
scanty remnant of the imperial garrisons had neither 
spirit nor numbers left to dispute the Muslim claim 
to dominion. Hence there Is no record of further 
fighting In that region, and It may be taken that the 
surrender of Upper Egypt followed peaceably on 
the surrender of Alexandria. 

Upon what passed in the capital itself during the 
remainder of the armistice, history is not altogether 
silent. The city, as we have seen, was crowded 
with refugees swept in from all parts of the country 
before the advancing tide of invasion. By the 
terms of the treaty Roman soldiers and settlers 
within the walls were free to leave by land or by 
sea ; while no provision was made for the Egyptians. 
But as the refugees witnessed the constant departure 
of vessels bound for Cyprus, Rhodes, and Byzantium, 
they became restless, and pined to return to their 



End of the Roman Dominion 359 

villages. Consequently they approached Cyrus, 
whose influence with *Amr was known to be potent, 
and begged of him to sue for the requisite permission. 
Apparently leave was refused. Nor is the failure 
of the Patriarch's mission surprising, when one re- 
members that it must have taken place before 
March, and therefore some time before the actual 
cessation of hostilities in the Delta. As most of 
the refugees belonged to Lower Egypt, clearly there 
was danger of their cg,rrying arms or aid to some 
of the still unconquered cities. 

But Cyrus took the refusal deeply to heart. It 
was a direct check to that policy of winning favour 
with the Copts by which, it seemed, he now hoped 
to cancel something from the heavy reckoning of 
their resentment. He appears already to have 
despaired of retaining the ascendency over them 
which he had hoped to found on his alliance with the 
Muslim power. Gloomy presentiments overcast the 
mind of the Mukaukas, as he saw the end of the 
Roman sovereignty drawing nearer. All the news 
from Constantinople was against him. Martina and 
her sons had been put aside, or put to death, 
and Constans had been proclaimed sole Emperor 
by the end of November (641). Pyrrhus, who was 
on friendly terms with Cyrus, and had apparently 
been converted by Cyrus to the interests of Martina, 
had been banished, and Philagrius, the enemy of 
Cyrus, had been recalled. A second revolt by 
Valentine ^ had failed owing to the hostility of the 

* John of Nikiou, p. 582. Zotenberg makes out that this second 
rebellion took place in 644: but his date can hardly be correct. 
Sebeos says that the revolt occurred in the second year of Constantine 
(Constans), which would be 642-3, unless the second year were 
regarded as beginning on Jan. i, 642, as is possible. In any 



360 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

populace : but when Valentine was seized and 
brought before Constans on a charge of usurping 
the purple, the rebel swore the most solemn oath 
that he was guiltless of any such design, and that 
his only purpose in gathering an army was to fight 
the Muslims. Thereupon the Emperor, accepting 
these professions of loyalty, reinstated Valentine, 
and agreed to marry his daughter : and Valentine 
gave proof of his sincerity by striking wildly at all 
who could be imagined to favour Martina and 
Pyrrhus. Among the rest, he charged Arcadius, 
Archbishop of Cyprus, with treason, and sent a troop 
of soldiers to arrest him. Death, however, inter- 
vened, and released Arcadius from the summons. 

But the incident revealed to Cyrus his own im- 
minent danger. Arcadius was a man of the most 
blameless and saintly repute ; yet he was to have 
been haled like a malefactor to Constantinople to 
take his trial. How then could Cyrus hope to 
stand, if arraigned on the same charge of treason ? 
His friendship for Martina and for Pyrrhus was 
notorious, as well as his guilt for the loss of Egypt. 
Moreover the court party had now realized what 
the loss of Egypt meant, and were furious with the 
man who had brought this evil and dishonour upon 
the Empire. 

It is no wonder that, as message followed mes- 
sage telling of these events at Constantinople, the 
Archbishop sank into profound depression. Menaced 
by fear of exile or death at the Emperor s bidding, 
which was still law in Alexandria; baffled in his 

case John of Nikiou is perfectly clear in making 'the triumph 
and power of Valentine ' after this revolt one of the things which 
depressed Cyrus. As Cyrus died in March, 642, Valentine's 
rebellion must have taken place about January of that year. 



End of the Roman Dominion 361 

plans for conjuring away the memory of the per- 
secution and making friends of the Copts ; his 
Church poHcy for ever discredited; and his state- 
craft rendered for ever infamous by its very triumph 
— Cyrus was now a broken man in mind and body. 
All his dreams of ambition had dissolved : his very 
hopes of personal safety were gone. As he felt the 
shadows closing round his life, his conscience awoke 
to a sense of his crimes as well as his failures. 
Torn by unavailing remorse, he deplored his be- 
trayal of Egypt with ceaseleSs tears ^ So plunged 
in gloom and despondency he fell an easy victim 
to a dysentery, which seized him on Palm Sunday, 
and on the following Thursday, March 21, 642, he 
died. 

It is quite clear that Cyrus died a natural death, 
and that his end was hastened by the misery and 
ignominy into which he had fallen. Of the two 
passages in which his death is recorded by John of 
Nikiou,the first says that 'overwhelmed with sorrows, 
he was taken ill of a dysentery and died,* the other 
says that 'he wept unceasingly, fearing lest he 
should suffer the same fate that had befallen him 
previously, i. e. exile : and in the midst of this grief 
he died according to the law of nature ^.^ But in 
the one case it is stated that he was afflicted by the 
calamities which had come upon Egypt and the 
brutal treatment of the Egyptians by the Arabs, 

^ In the text John of Nikiou is made to say (pp. 582-3), 'His 
greatest sorrow had been to see the refusal by the Muslims of 
his requests in favour of the Egyptians': but the title of the chapter 
runs, with far more reason, ' Of the death of Cyrus, the Chalcedonian, 
with the remorse of having delivered Alexandria into the hands of 
the Muslims.' This doubtless points to the need for correcting 
the reading of the text. 

^ pp. 578 and 582. 



362 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

while in the other we are told that his chief sorrow 
was the refusal of his intercession on behalf of the 
Egyptians. There is no reason to doubt this ac- 
count of his end, although a Coptic tradition as old 
as Severus^ gives a somewhat different version. 
* When *Amr took Alexandria,' it runs, * and settled 
the affairs of the city, the misbelieving governor, 
who was both Prefect and Patriarch of Alexandria, 
feared that *Amr would put him to death. Accord- 
ingly the misbeliever touched a poisoned signet-ring 
with his tongue, and so perished on the spot.' It 
was not so much *Amr as the Roman Emperor 
whom Al Mukaukas feared: but the fact of his 
terror, and the fact that it hastened his death, are 
both curiously preserved in this dramatic legend. 

One other point in connexion with the story of 
Cyrus' death calls for notice. We have already 
seen that *Amr treated the Egyptians during the 
conquest with great harshness ^, and that the Coptic 
historian s wrath is roused against him for the severity 
of the tasks laid on his countrymen. So here, in 
speaking of the Patriarchs last days, John says, 
**Amr had no mercy upon the Egyptians, and he 
failed to observe the treaty they had made with 
him : for he was of barbarian race ^l In another 
passage * he enters into more detail, and records that 
a man named Menas, who had been nominated 
Prefect of Lower Egypt by Heraclius, was continued 
in office by the Arabs. Menas was a presumptuous 
man, unlettered, and a deep hater of the Egyptians. 
Similarly one Sinodi, or Sanutius, was continued as 

^ Brit. Mus. MS., p. 106. See also Pereira's Vida do Abba Samuel, 
p. 48, where the Synaxarium is quoted. 
' p. 347 supra. 
' P- 578. ' p. 577. 



End of the Roman Dominion 363 

Prefect of the Rif, and one Philoxenus^ as Prefect of 
Arcadia, or the Fayum. All three of these men 
are described as loving the heathen and hating the 
Christians, upon whom they laid grievous burdens. 
The Copts were forced to carry fodder for the cattle 
of the Arabs, and to provide them with milk, honey, 
fruit, vegetables, and other things in great abun- 
dance over and above the ordinary rations, i. e. the 
taxes in kind : and these orders the Copts executed 
under the stroke of incessant terror. 

This account is highly interesting for two reasons. 
The three Prefects named — the most important in 
Egypt save the Prefect of Alexandria — were not 
only Roman officials, but Roman officials under the 
governorship of Cyrus, and therefore Melkites, 
without any religious or political sympathy with the 
Copts : and this is a proof that, so far from the con- 
verts to Islam coming exclusively from the Copts, 
some at least of the most influential of the rene- 
gades were from among the Romans. One almost 
begins to wonder whether the conduct of Al Mu- 
kaukas himself could not be explained on the theory 
that he was a secret convert to the religion of 
Mohammed. The second point is this. It is now 
established that *Amr treated the Copts, both before 
and after the surrender of Alexandria, with the 
sternest rigour. But if so, how is it possible to 
maintain that, in the hackneyed phrase, the Copts 
welcomed the Arabs with open arms ? Such a 
theory might be demolished from this passage alone 

^ Among the papyri of the Archduke Rainer Collection is a letter 
from this same Philoxenus, Prefect of Arcadia, naming the con- 
tribution to be paid to Kharijah at Babylon (Karabacek's Fiihrer 
durch die Ausstellungy p. 138, No. 553). This is one more con- 
firmation of John of Nikiou's remarkable accuracy. 



364 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

in John of Nikiou : and those Arab writers, of much 
later date, who seem to countenance it, must be 
held either to convict themselves of error or to 
convict their hero *Amr of the blackest ingratitude. 
But the closer one examines the history of this 
period the clearer it becomes that Cyrus was not 
alone in his treason to the Empire. The ease with 
which these three great Roman officials ransomed 
their office by the transfer of their political and their 
religious allegiance to Islam, and the manner in 
which they used their new lease of power to strike 
at the faith and the fortunes of the Copts — these 
things prove beyond cavil that there was a wider 
conspiracy against the Empire among the Romans, 
and that the conspirators were as hostile to the 
Copts as they were benevolent to the Arabs. 

Little remains to be told of the six months in 
Alexandria between the death of Cyrus and the 
entry of the Arab forces. Indeed, the only event 
of which we have any certain knowledge is the 
appointment of the successor of Cyrus in the Melkite 
patriarchate. This did not take place till some 
three months later, when, on July 14^, the festival 
of St. Theodore, the deacon Peter was duly clothed 
with the pallium and seated on the throne left vacant 
by the last of the imperial Patriarchs of Alexandria. 
The delay may have been caused by reference to 
Constantinople, or by the difficulty of finding a can- 
didate for an office which was henceforth to be sun- 
dered from the hierarchy of the Empire, and there- 
fore to be held on a most precarious tenure. For 
all hope of aid from Byzantium had now finally 
vanished. The boasted army of Valentine proved 
utterly powerless to attempt the recovery of Egypt, 
^ Mr. Brooks rightly corrects Zotenberg's date, July 26. 



End of the Roman Dominion 365 

although the people there were already beginning 
to discover how idle were their dreams of a settled 
government with fixed taxation. The whole country 
is described as suffering oppression at the hands of 
the Muslims ; but the burden fell most heavily upon 
the city of Alexandria. There the interruption of the 
traffic which had enriched the people, and also the 
departure of those wealthy nobles and merchants 
who had resolved to abandon their home in Egypt, 
made the incidence of the new taxation very severe 
upon those that remained. In spite of the smooth 
phrases of Cyrus, they were feeling now the bitter- 
ness of subjection to the enemies of their country 
and their religion. 

Depression and melancholy hung over the city 
during the last few weeks of the armistice. Already 
many of the houses were left empty, and the bustle 
of departure from the quays grew less, as vessel 
after vessel, laden with retiring Romans and their 
goods and chattels, sailed northwards to return no 
more. But a great fleet was gathering in the harbour 
to remove the remaining legions of* the imperial 
army. Theodore, who was appointed governor of 
Egypt on the death of Cyrus, and Constantlne, who 
succeeded him as commander-in-chief, seem to have 
personally undertaken the mission of arranging for 
the withdrawal of the Roman forces throughout 
the Delta, acting in concert with the Arabs ^. The 
Nile was now rising high, and all the waterways 

^ Zotenberg (p. 583, n. 2) is right in his view that the presence of 
Theodore and Constantine in the interior was in consequence of the 
armistice, and that there is no suggestion of any resumption of 
hostilities at this time. Zotenberg offers no opinion on the reason 
of their absence from Aleixandria; but the reason I have given above 
seems adequate. 



366 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

were available for transport. This accordingly was 
the season agreed upon for the evacuation, and with 
its arrival the remnant of the Roman garrisons 
embarked in boats under Theodore and Constantine, 
and passed down to Alexandria. At the same time 
the hostages held at Babylon by the Arabs were 
released, or at least escorted down the river to join 
their comrades in the capital \ 

Once more the Feast of the Cross had come 
round. By a strange irony that festival of Septem- 
ber 14, which a year ago was marked by the arrival 
of the traitor Archbishop, Al Mukaukas, was now 
marked by the final act in the downfall of the 
Christian dominion in Egypt. Even as the Exalta- 
tion Service was sounding in the Cathedral, the last 
touches were being given to the vessels in harbour 
and the last orders for embarkation were issued. 
And three days later 2, on September 17, Theo- 
dore's fleet, bearing the mournful residue of the 
imperial army, cast off its moorings and set sail for 

Cyprus ^. 

• 

^ The release of the hostages before the entry into Alexandria is 
curious, but it shows the strength of the Muslim position and the 
weakness of the Romans by this time. Most of the Romans must 
already have cleared out of the country. 

^ Mr. Brooks shows that the words ^ Apres la f^te de la Croix ' 
in Zotenberg's version (p. 582) of John of Nikiou are displaced. 
I agree in the main with his contention, but I think rather that 
the following two lines ' le 20 du mois de liaml6 . . . siege 
pontifical ' are wrongly here inserted and should be put back at 
the beginning of the paragraph before the words ' Ensuite 
Theodore.' Then ' apres la fete de la Croix ' need not be moved, 
but runs on naturally with Me 20 du mois de maskaram.' 

^ Suyiiti says, ' There were 200,000 men of the Romans in the 
city, of whom 30,000 fighting-men fled in 100 large ships with 
all the property they could take, while those who remained had to 
pay tribute.' The context lends some colour to the idea that the 



End of the Roman Dominion 367 

Only a few days now remained for the wretched 
inhabitants to set their house in order. On Sep- 
tember 29 the eleven months of the armistice ex- 
pired : the great gates were flung open : and 'Amr 
at the head of his rude desert warriors marched in 
past the long lines of gleaming colonnade and the 
stately palaces of the great city of Alexandria. So 
the Roman Empire in Egypt ended. 

reference is to the second capture of Alexandria ; but the balance 
of evidence is against it, and the language used seems clearly to 
point to the evacuation under the treaty. It will be remembered 
that the treaty expressly provided that the Romans should take 
their property with them, whereas at the second capture there 
certainly was no leisure for such a proceeding. In any case it 
is not likely that an army of 30,000 men all embarked and set sail 
together, though the proportion of ships to men is not unreasonable. 
By the date of the evacuation the garrison had doubtless dwindled 
to a much lower number. Suyutfs account of the evacuation 
seems to come from Makrizi, who quotes Abil Kabil as his 
authority. The 100 large ships carried away 30,000 Roman 
soldiers with money and goods; and it is added that 600,000 
inhabitants were left to pay the poll-tax, besides women and 
children— which must be an exaggeration. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

ALEXANDRIA AT THE CONQUEST 

'Amr's letter to the Caliph. Dazzling brightness of the city. 
Colonnades. Reservoirs. The Bruchion. The Cathedral church 
of Caesarion : its description and history. Cleopatra's Needles : 
confusion of obelisks with the Pharos. Crabs of bronze and glass : 
Arab testimony vindicated. The Serapeum described : original 
plan and structure. Position of the Library. Diocletian's Column. 
Arab legends. Amphitheatre. The Pharos : classical and Arab 
authorities. Structure of the tower. The marvellous mirror: 
story of its destruction. Ruin of the Pharos. The Cairo minaret 
modelled upon it. 

' I HAVE taken a city of which I can but say that 
it contains 4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 400 theatres, 
12,000 sellers of green vegetables, and 40,000 tribu- 
tary Jews.* Such is the current form of the well- 
known letter^ of *Amr reporting his capture to the 
Caliph. While these round numbers contain an 
obvious overstatement, which was probably not in the 
original letter but has arisen from copyists' errors ^, 
they show clearly enough what an impression the 
city made upon its conquerors. But amazed as 
they were at the size and splendour of Alexandria, 
they were even more struck by its extraordinary 
brilliancy. 'Alexandria is a city containing much 

^ If we read 400 palaces and baths, 40 theatres, 1,200 sellers 
of vegetables, and 40,000 Jews, there is nothing improbable in the 
estimate. Zachariah of Mitylene, who gives careful statistics of 
Rome, says there were 1,797 houses of magnates or palaces, and 
926 baths there (pp. 317-8). 'Amr's letter comes in Ibn 'Abd al 
Hakam, also in Eutychius, in Makrizi, and in Maktn. Makrtzt 
gives a typical exaggeration from Abu Kabil : ' Among the baths 
were 12,000 vaulted buildings, the smallest of which contained 
I5O00 sitting-rooms ' ! 



Alexandria at the Conquest 369 

marble In pavements, buildings, and columns,' says 
one writer ^ * The city was all white and bright by 
night as well as by day/ says another ^ : and again, 
' By reason of the walls and pavements of white 
marble, the people used all to wear black or red 
garments : it was the glare of the marble which 
made the monks wear black. So too It was painful 
to go out by night : for the moonlight reflected from 
the white marble made the city so bright that a 
tailor could see to thread his needle without a lamp. 
No one entered the city without a covering over his 
eyes to veil him from the glare of the plaster and 
marble.' Yet a third Arab writer^, of the tenth 
century, alleges that awnings of green silk were 
hung over the streets to relieve the dazzling glare 
of the marble ^. 

All the streets were colonnaded, according to the 
same author. This certainly was true of the two 
great avenues which, as we have seen, Intersected the 
city. One of these ran from east to west, joining 
the Sun Gate to the Moon Gate ^ while the other 

* Istakhri [Bihl. Geog. Arab., ed. de Goeje, part i. p. 51). 

^ Suyuti [Husn al Muhddarah). The monks of Serapis used 
to wear black, but it may be doubted whether this was the reason : 
see Dr. Botti's Fouilles a la Colonne Theodoszenne, p. 37, n. 2. 

3 Mas*udi (p. 429). 

* The general impression made on the Muslim mind by Alex- 
andria is well illustrated by Ibn Dukmak (part v. p. 117), who 
writes : * *Abd al Malik ibn Juraij said, " I have made the pilgrimage 
sixty times; but if God had suffered me to stay a month at 
Alexandria and pray on its shores, that month would be dearer 
to me than the sixty prescribed pilgrimages which I have under- 
taken." ' And again (p. 118): * According to the law of Moses, if 
a man make a pilgrimage round Alexandria in the morning, God 
will make for him a golden crown set with pearls, perfumed with 
musk and camphor, and shining from the east to the west.' 

^ Some authorities put these gates in the wrong place, viz. north 

BUTLER B b 



370 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

ran from north to south : they met and crossed in a 
large open space enclosing gardens and surrounded 
by fine buildings. Beautiful gardens too belonged 
to many of the palaces in the middle of the city ^ 
Suyuti, apparently quoting from Ibn *Abd al Hakam, 
writes that ' Alexandria was composed of three cities 
side by side, each with its own wall, and the whole 
encircled by another wall/ This must refer to the 
Egyptian quarter, the Roman quarter, and the Jews' 
quarter : but its accuracy is perhaps doubtful. ' Abd- 
allah ibn Zartf alleges that there were seven forts 
and seven moats, and the Fort of the Persians 
was certainly regarded as one of the wonders of 
Alexandria. 

Nor were the Arabs less amazed at the buildings 
than at the substructure of the city — that marvellous 
subterranean labyrinth of cisterns, many descending 
to a depth of four or five stories, and each story 
showing a forest of columns and chambers. * Alex- 
andria is a city upon a city: there is nothing like 
it on earth,' exclaims Suyuti, * so full is it of columns 
loftier and larger than any to be seen elsewhere.' 
These underground chambers were for the storage 
of fresh water. They were fed by conduits running 

and south of the city. If there were any doubt, it would be 
removed by John of Nikiou's plain statement (p. 415) that 
Antoninus Pius built the Sun Gate at the east and the Moon 
Gate at the west. Amdlineau is among those who appear 
mistaken: *La Porte du Soleil se trouvait au sud de la ville, 
prbs du canal amenant Teau du Nil ' {Geog. Copte, p. 32). The 
Gate of the Sun was no doubt also the Gate of Heliopolis (Id., ib., 
p. 42), but the road to Heliopolis ran through the East Gate: 
there was no great highway out on the south except for boats. 
Amdlineau's article on Alexandria is meagre and disappointing. 

* John Moschus says, cio-t yap TrapaSeto-ot /xccrov ttJs ttoAcws Iv 
TOL^ OLKOLS Twv fji€yL(rTdv(Dv (Pratum Spiriiuak, cap. 207). 



Alexandria at the Conquest 371 

from the Nile canal, which passed through the city 
in the Egyptian quarter ; and being filled at flood- 
time they held enough water to last the whole year 
through ^ 

In former times the most splendid part of the city 
was that called the Bruchion, which was bounded 
on the north by the harbour and on the south by 
the great avenue running from the Sun Gate to the 
central garden. The destruction wrought in this 
quarter by Aurelian was no doubt great, but probably 
it has been exaggerated ^ : and it is unlikely that the 
ruin would have been left unrepaired. Here in any 
case had stood the palaces of the Ptolemies : here 
also had been the Mausoleum, where Alexander's 
body rested in its golden shell, and the Museum 
with its marvellous libraries, the centre of the learn- 
ing of the world. In the same quarter towards the 
east was still to be seen the Tetrapylus, an open 
temple or pavilion with four rows of columns about 
it. Here Alexander was said to have laid the bones 
of Jeremiah the Prophet, and the place was held 

^ Some of these reservoirs remain to the present day. See an 
article entitled Les Citernes d'Alexandrie by Dr. Botti in the Bulletin 
de la Sociiie Archeologique d'Alexandrie, No. 2, 1899, pp. 15 seq., 
where some interesting plans are given. Caesar, De Bell, Civ. iv, 
mentions these cisterns and the canal which supplied them. 

^ Ammianus Marcellinus (xxii. 16) seems to say that the city 
lost the greater part of the area called Bruchion owing to the ruin 
caused by civil broils in the time of Aurelian. But John of Nikiou 
proves conclusively that the area of the city had not shrunk in 
the manner alleged, and that the old line of wall on the eastern 
side was standing as strongly as ever. Antoninus Martyr, who 
visited the place in the century before the conquest (c. 565 a.d.), 
says ' Alexandria is a magnificent city,' which he could hardly say 
if its finest quarter was in ruins (Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, 
vol. ii. p. 35). 

B b 2 



;' 



372 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

in great veneration ^. Close by the Tetrapylus was 
the church of St. Mary Dorothea, built by Eulogius, 
and further east, near the walls and near the shore, 
the great church of St. Mark^ was still standing and 
within it the marble shrine containing the bones of 
the Apostle himself. * Coming from Egypt as one 
enters the city,' says Arculfus^ 'one meets on the 
north side a large church, in which Mark the Evan- 
gelist is buried. His sepulchre is shown before the 
altar in the east end . . . and a monument to him 
has been built of marble above it.' In the same 
part of the town were the churches of St.. Theodore 
and St. Athanasius ^ 

But more renowned in the seventh century even 
than St. Mark's was the church called the Caesarion, 
which stood in the same quarter toward the middle 
of the bend of the great harbour. This church had 
almost usurped the place of the Cathedral. Its 
vast fabric, with the two ancient Egyptian obelisks 

* John Moschus, Pra/w^z Spirituale^ cap. 77. Amdlineau (Geog. 
Copte, p. 29) cites a Coptic MS. which places the Tetrapylus in 
the middle of the town and concludes that it was on the ' Grande 
Place.' The expression is too vague to warrant such an inference. 

^ John of Nikiou says (p. 524) that it was close to the sea, and 
(p. 548) that it was near a gate of the city. There seems, however, 
to have been a second church of the name ; see Amdlineau, Geog. 
Copte, pp. 37-8. 

^ Arculfus was in Egypt c. 670 a. d. ; see Palestine Pilgrims Text 
Society, vol. iii. p. 52. Two hundred years later the city had 
so shrunk that Bernard the Wise, c. 870, says: 'Beyond the east 
gate is the monastery of St. Mark; there are monks here at the 
church where he formerly lay. But the Venetians coming by sea 
bore away his body to their own island' (id., ib., p. 5). By 1350 
the church where St. Mark was martyred was 'about two miles 
east of Alexandria ' (id., vol. vi. p. 33). So clearly is the dwindling 
of the city shown. 

* John of Nikiou, p. 543. 



Alexandria at the Conquest 373 

standing in Its fore-court, towered above the city 
walls, and was the most conspicuous object in the 
near foreground of the view ^ just as the acropolis 
with the Serapeum and Diocletian's Column was in 
the background, as the traveller entered the harbour 
by the Pharos. The Caesarion had originally been 
a heathen temple. It was begun by Cleopatra in 
honour of Caesar, and was finished by Augustus. 
The description given by Philo is worth quoting ^ : — 

* That temple of Caesar's in Alexandria under the 
name of Sebastian (Augustus) is a piece incom- 
parably above all others. It stands situate over 
against a most commodious harbour ; wonderful, 
high, and large in proportion; an eminent sea- 
mark ; full of choice paintings and statues, with 
donatives and oblations in abundance ; and then it 
is beautiful all over with gold and silver ; the model 
curious and regular in the disposition of the parts, 
as galleries, libraries, porches, courts, halls, walks 
and consecrated groves, as glorious as expense and 
art could make them, and everything in the proper 
place; beside that the hope and comfort of sea- 
faring men, either coming in or going out' 

This 'superb palace,' as John of Nlkiou^ terms it, 

^ This is confirmed by Strabo, Philo, and Pliny. See an 
interesting article by Monsignor Kyrillos II entitled Le Temple 
du Cesareum in the Bulletin de la Soc. Khediviale de Geographies 
Ve S^rie, No. 6, F^v. 1900 (Le Caire, 1900). I am indebted to 
this article for much information. Am^lineau, forgetful alike of 
classical and of Arab authorities, strangely says : ' Je ne saispas trop 
oil placer le C^sarion, car les details manquent absolument ' {G^og. 
Copky p. 32). The site of the obelisks being well known, that of 
the Caesarion cannot, as we shall see, be doubtful. 

* Philo's Embassy from the Jews of Alexandria to Caligula in 
Josephus, ed. Sir R. L'Estrange, London, 1702, fol., p. 1087. 

' P- 405- 



374 T^he Arab Conquest of Egypt 

was changed by Constantine the Great into a 
Christian church and dedicated to St. Michael ^ but 
at the date of the conquest it still retained its old 
name, Caesarion. It was about 350 a. d. that it 
became the patriarchal church or Cathedral. But 
in 366, in the days of Athanasius, a furious crowd 
of pagans and Arians met in the great open space 
before the church, and rushing in they burned the 
altar, the throne, carpets, veils, and all they could 
lay hands upon. If any books remained from the 
libraries mentioned by Philo, they must then have 
perished; but the church was restored in 368. 
Readers of Hypatia will remember that it was in 
the Caesarion, some fifty years later, that the maiden 
philosopher was torn to pieces by a mob of Christian 

* The Coptic Synaxarium for 12 Baunah (Festival of the 
Archangel Michael) is curious. It runs thus : ' The reason why 
we keep the feast of St. Michael to-day is that there was in the city 
of Alexandria a great temple built by Cleopatra, daughter of 
Ptolemy, in honour of Saturn; and his feast was kept there on 
this same 12 Ba*unah. In the temple was an idol of brass (or 
bronze) called Saturn, to which upon this day many sacrifices 
were offered. This custom was kept up by the people until the 
time of the Patriarch Alexander in the reign of the Emperor 
Constantine.' The Synaxarium goes on to say that Alexander 
wished to destroy the idol, but the people refused to renounce their 
ancient custom and the rejoicings of the day. Finally, the Patriarch 
offered to retain the festival and holiday, to make the sacrifices 
to the true God for the benefit of the poor instead of to the idol, 
and to change the dedication to St. Michael. This offer was 
accepted, and the idol was broken in pieces; but the name Caesarion 
remained. The church stood until the Muslims came, and then 
was destroyed. So the record closes. Eutychius says that a cross 
was made out of the bronze statue : he adds that the church ' Igne 
periit cum Occidentales Alexandriam ingressi cam vastarunt' — which 
is somewhat obscure — and that the Copts in his day continued 
the feast, at which they slew many victims in sacrifice (Migne, Pair, 
Gr, t. Ill, col. 1005). 



Alexandria at the Conquest 375 

fanatics ^ in an orgie truly worthy of the ancient 
temple of Saturn. It was in the baptistery of the 
Caesarion that Timothy Aelurus took refuge nearly 
half a century later, only to be dragged out and sent 
into exile ; and when after twenty years of banish- 
ment Timothy landed again at Alexandria 'he 
was received with great state, with torches and 
songs of praise, by the various people and lan- 
guages there,' and escorted in triumph to the same 
Caesarion 2. 

There is no description of the interior of the 
Caesarion remaining; but it may be taken for granted 
that it was of the basilican type, and retained its 
splendid embellishment. The last great scene of 
pomp under the Caesars was the service of rejoicing 
for the return of Cyrus, whose sermon must have rung 
strangely in the memories of those who now watched 
the entry of *Amr s army. But the church did not 
long outlast the conquest. Yet its name in the Arab 
form, Kaisariah, given first to some kind of palace 
or public building, survives to-day, though with 
a changed meaning 2. 

^ The authority for this is Socrates, who wrote soon after the 
event (Hist. Eccl. vii. 13-15). John of Nikiou (pp. 464-6) gives 
an account which, accusing Hypatia of magic arts, approves 
her death, but makes it appear that after being stripped in the 
Caesarion she was dragged through the streets till she died, and 
was burned at the place called Cinaron, 

* Zachariah of Mitylene's Chronicle j p. no. Zachariah speaks 
of the ' Great Church ' here and also p. 76 : but on p. 64 he 
expressly says 'The Great Church is called Caesarion,' which 
establishes the identity. The welcome given to Timothy is 
curiously like that given to Cyrus on his return from banishment. 

' The principal street, or High Street, in an Arab town is now 
called the Kaisariah. A passage in Shams ad Din al Makdasi 
almost looks as if in early days the term were applied by the 
Muslims to their larger mosques {Bibl, Geog. Arab, part iii. 



376 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

The two obelisks of red Aswin granite, which 
stood before the Caesarion, excited the curiosity and 
wonder of the Arabs, and their historians have many 
particulars about them, Thus Ya'kubt (ninth cen- 
tury) says, * There are two obelisks of variegated 
stone standing on two brazen crabs with ancient 
inscriptions^' ; and Ibn Rustah (early tenth century) 
in much the same manner speaks of ' two monuments 
like lighthouses (manarah), square, and standing on 
two figures of scorpions, made of copper or brass, on 
which are inscriptions. It is also reported that the 
figure of the scorpion was melted by a fire kindled 
beneath it, and that the monuments felP/ His 
contemporary, Ibn al Faklh, discloses already the 
beginnings of a strange confusion between these 
obelisks and the great lighthouse or Pharos, which 
the Arabs called A I Manarah, For he says, * The 
manarah of Alexandria stands on a crab of glass in 
the sea * ; and again, * it has two pillars standing on 
two images, one of brass and one of glass, the brazen 
image in the form of a scorpion and the glass image 
in the form of a crab^.' By Mas'udt's time the 
legend had crystallized into one of those fairy tales 
in which the imagination of the Arabs delighted. 
He says : * The lighthouse was built on a foundation 
of glass in the form of a crab, on a tongue of land 

p. 197). It was certainly used to denote a quadrangle sur- 
rounded by colonnades, which might serve as mosque or as 
market-place ; and it is from this latter use that the modern 
acceptation of the term is derived: see Abu Salih, p. 116, n. i. 
The high street is the natural place for sale and barter in an eastern 
town. 

^ Bihl. Geog. Arab, part vii. p. 339. 

^ Id., ib., p. 117. See also Athenceum, July, 1887, and de Goeje's 
note on this passage. 

' Id., part V. pp. 70, 71. 



Alexandria at the Conquest 377 

projecting Into the sea. On the top of the light- 
house were images of brass. One figure pointed with 
its right hand to the sun, wherever it might be in the 
heavens, and lowered its hand as the sun sank ; 
another pointed to the sea in the direction from 
which an enemy was approaching, and as the enemy- 
drew near, it cried out in a terrible voice, which could 
be heard two or three miles away, and so alarmed 
the inhabitants V 

Of course the Pharos was an entirely distinct 
monument — a solid structure of stone towering an 
immense height into the air — and it is ludicrous to 
imagine that its wide and vast foundations could rest 
on a crab of crystal. Nevertheless it is exceedingly 
interesting to trace the origin of this seemingly idle 
legend. For it comes from a mere misunderstanding 
of historical fact most accurately reported by the 
earliest Arab chroniclers. There is no doubt what- 
ever that, at the time of 'Amr s entry into Alexan- 
dria, the two obelisks in front of the Caesarion stood 
on crabs as described. This was proved at the time 
of the removal of the obelisk which is now at New 
York. It was found that the monolith rested on 
four gigantic crabs of metal, which held it clear of 
the pedestal. The pedestal was formed of a single 
block of granite, which rested in turn on three 
graduated courses of stone. At the time of the ex- 
cavation — for the base had been buried for centuries 

^ Quoted by Makrizi, Khitat, vol. i. p. 255. Suyfiti, giving his 
authority as the writer of Mubdhij al Fikr. goes a step further 
in saying that ' the lighthouse was built of hewn stone fixed with 
lead over vaults of glass, which again stood on a crab of glass ' ! 
{Husn al MuMdarak, vol. i. p. 53). Ibn Rustah marks the 
confusion when he says that ' the manarah was built on /our crabs 
of glass/ 



378 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

— only one of the four crabs was discovered, and 
that in a mutilated condition ; but the design and 
purpose of the crab were unmistakable, an inscrip- 
tion in Greek and in Latin upon the metal was 
still legible, and the truth of the Arab historians 
was vindicated ^. This is a striking example of the 
way in which archaeology sometimes comes to the 
rescue of history. 

But, it will be said, what becomes of the crabs or 
scorpions of glass under the other monolith ? Is 
this a mere romantic fancy ? No answer could be 
more illogical. Given two closely related statements, 
one of which is proved to be pure truth — to be 
indeed a statement of singular exactitude — to argue 
that the other is pure invention would be something 
like a wanton defiance of history. Nor is one forced 
to choose between defying the laws of history and 
defying the laws of natural science. Of course it 
may be the case that no monolith the size of Cleopa- 
tra's Needle could rest on crabs of glass of modern 
make, nor could crystal have been found in blocks 
of size adequate for the purpose. But there is a 
mineral of extreme hardness and polish, viz. black 
obsidian, which so resembles glass that it is defined 
as natural glass. The crabs under the second 

^ A photograph of the crab may be seen on pi. v of Lt.-Col. 
H. H. Gorringe's Egyptian Obelisks (London, 1885), and other 
plates show the substructure. Ndroutsos Bey in his JOAncienne 
Alexandrie, pp. 16, 17, gives a full description of the original 
setting of the obelisk. Of the four supports in the form of crabs 
only one remained: this was of ancient copper — 'cuivre repute 
aurifere.' ' Ce support repr^sentait un crabe marin couchd a plat 
ventre sur le bloc de granit et portant sur le dos une broche qui 
entrait au dessous de la carne du monolithe.' The three other 
supports were of the same design, and kept the obelisk up clear 
of the substructure. 



Alexandria at the Conquest 379 

obelisk — that now in London — may have been formed 
of black obsidian ; or, If this be impossible, then some 
other hard and highly polished stone was employed. 
Or finally, rather than discredit the Arab writers in 
a matter wherein their truth shines out clearly, one 
may accept their statement quite literally. That the 
Egyptians had not merely great skill but great 
secrets in the making of glass Is undoubted ; and it 
may well be that they were able to produce a ma- 
terial so toughened as to withstand the pressure of 
the monolith. One may note at the same time that 
the obelisk of London did actually fall long before 
its fellow. 

We now see the two great monuments reared 
above their storied bases before the Caesarion, one 
held up on four crabs of copper or bronze, the other 
on four scorpions of toughened glass or obsidian. 
And, when we dispel the confusion between these 
obelisks and the Pharos, it Is clear that the brazen 
images recorded by Makrizl stood not on the top of 
the Pharos, where they would have been almost 
invisible, but on the top of the obelisks. The figure 
* pointing to the sun * was undoubtedly a winged 
Hermes or Nike, probably standing on one foot 
upon the cap of the column ^ and stretching forth Its 
right hand in an attitude familiar enough in Greek 
sculpture ; while the other figure, ' pointing to the sea,' 
was designed with a view to symmetry. Exceedingly 
splendid must have been the appearance of these 
ancient monoliths in the setting devised by the taste 
and skill of the Augustan age, and very impressive 
the view of their lofty summits, as seen from the 
ships passing in and out of the harbour. 

Of the Museum itself there is practically no record 
^ It is proved that there was a metal cap on the obeKsks. 



380 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

remaining at this time, and it must be taken to have 
perished long before — possibly in the conflagration 
caused by Julius Caesar when he was besieged in this 
quarter by the Egyptians under Achillas ^, possibly in 
later wars or in the convulsions of dying paganism ^. 
But it is time to pass on to the Serapeum — a group 
of buildings of great beauty, and one which greatly 
struck the Arabs. It stood of course in a different 
part of the city, in a position now marked by Dio- 
cletian's Pillar. This quarter was known as the 
Egyptian quarter, and never lost its original name of 
Rakoti : indeed to the Copts Alexandria was always 
known less by the name of its great founder than by 
that of the fishing-village which existed for ages 
before Alexander — a curious instance of their time- 
defying conservatism. The site of the Serapeum is 
fixed precisely both by ancient written documents and 
by recent antiquarian researches. It is usually named 
in close connexion with Diocletian s Pillar, which the 
Arabs callGd' A mud as Sawdrt — Pillar of Columns — 
and this was near the southern gate of the city 
called by the Arabs the Gate of the Tree ^. It is 
not generally understood, and the present levels of 
Alexandria make it very difficult to realize, that the 
Serapeum was built on a veritable acropolis, rivalling 

* See below, pp. 407 seq., where this question is discussed. 

^ Matter says the Museum is not named after the fifth century 
^ {J^cole (TAlexandrie, t. i. p. 331). Dr. Botti assigns the dis- 
appearance of the Museum to an earlier date : ' apr^s Caracalla 
I'ancien Musde n'existe plus ' {Fouilles a la Colonne TJieodosienne, V^ 
p. 138). This study of Dr. Botti's is exceedingly valuable for the 
history and topography of ancient Alexandria. By the Colonne 
Thiodosienne he means what is generally called Diocletian's Pillar : 
the name Pompeys Pillar comes from a mistaken reading of the 
/ inscription beneath it. 

^ Both Yakiit and Kazwini give this name. 



/ 



Alexandria at the Conquest 381 

that of Athens. This citadel, however, while it 
towered above the city, was mainly artificial. For 
although there was a core of natural rock in the 
middle of the site, the vast mass of the acropolis had 
been reared by the hand of man, the lofty outer 
walls enclosing vaulted substructures which rose 
story above story ^ Thus a huge quadrangular fort- 
ress was formed, with a broad level summit, adorned 
with magnificent buildings. There seem to have 
been two ways of access ; one by a carriage road, the 
other by a long flight of one hundred steps, though 
it is not easy to see the use of the latter 2. The 

* The core of rock is visible to this day, while the description of 
Rufinus leaves no manner of doubt that the citadel was in the main 
a huge pile of masonry. He says : * Locus est non natura sed manu 
et constructione per centum aut eo amplius gradus in sublime 
suspensus, quadratis et ingentibus spatiis omni ex parte distentus : 
cuncta vero, quo ad summum evadatur, opere forniceo constructa. 
. . . Extrema totius ambitus spatia occupant exedrae et pastophoria 
et domus in excelsum porrectae, in quibus vel aeditui vel hi quos 
ayvevoi/ras vocant, id est qui se castificant, commanere soliti erant. 
Porticus quoque post haec omnem ambitum quadratis ordinibus 
distinctae intrinsecus circumibant. In medio totius spatii aedes 
erat pretiosis edita columnis et marmoris saxo extrinsecus ample 
magnificeque constructa. In hac simulacrum Serapis ita erat 
vastum ut dextra unum parietem, alterum laeva perstringeret : quod 
monstrum ex omnibus generibus metallorum lignorumque compo- 
situm ferebatur' {Hist. Eccl, ii. c. 23). >'Rufinus does not mention 
the library, but he witnessed the destruction of the idol and 
presumably the temple. Eunapius speaks of the destruction of 
the building as very thorough : tw t€ SapaTrcto) KaTeAv/>t7}vavro /cat 
Tots avaOrjixacnv iiroXe/jirjo-av . . . tov Se ^apa-TTeiov fiovov to eSacjio? 
ovx v<f>€LXovTo Sua /3apos Tcuv XlO(dv ov yap rjcrav ev/xeTaKLvrjTOi. 
(TvyxiavTis Se a-rravTa kol crvvTapd^avres, k.t.X. {Vifa Aedesiz\ 
CO. 77-8). This was in the reign of Theodosius, while Theophilus 
was Patriarch of Alexandria and Romanus commander of the 
garrison. 

^ Dr. Botti in his first study of the subject {L'.Acropole d'Alex- 
andn'e, p. 7) seems to overlook the carriage road, not having the 



382 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

staircase lay on the eastern side of the acropolis. At 
the top of the long flight of stairs one entered the 
propylaeum, which was upheld by four enormous 
columns, two on each side of the passage ; the passage 
was closed by gates or grills of bronze \ 

The general arrangement of the buildings on the 
summit is not easy to understand from the descrip- 
tions which remain : but it seems to have been as 
follows. The space was oblong — some 500 cubits 
in length and 250 in breadth 2. On the edge of the 

whole passage of Aphthonius before him: 'Done pas de routes 
d'acces, mais seulement un escaher monumental de cent degrds; pas 
de route carrossable.' But in his Colonne TModosienne (p. 24) the 
passage set out in full proves that there was a way open for carriages 
on one side. Dr. Botti in the latter work (p. 82) gives a somewhat 
curious translation of Aphthonius' words — eto-tovrt Se Trap* arr^r 
rr}v OLKpoTToXiv T€TTap(n TrXevpats cts x^pos ttrats Stiypcrat (? SirjprjTaL) 
Koi TO ^^(rjixa TrXaCcnov rvyxdvei. rov fxiq-^cLvriiiaro's. He renders 
' quand on entre dans Tacropole (on ne trouve qu') un seul plateau, 
lequel est divise en quatre ailes semblables, et son ordonnance 
quadrilatere tient de la figure d'un moule a briques/ Surely to 
o-x^/Aa Tov firfxav^fJ^aTos goes together, and the sentence means 
' the general plan of the arrangement is quadrilateral' The pre- 
ceding words mean that the space occupied by the quadrangle 
is divided into four by * ribs ' of equal length, i. e. by cross colon- 
nades, as I show in the text. 

^ This citadel and its entrance are mentioned by Polybius in 
reference to the revolt of Cleomenes: 'the commander of the 
citadel secured the entrance gate' (v. 39). Had Matter recollected 
this passage, he would not have questioned Aphthonius' use of the 
term acropolis {^cok cfAlexandrie, t. i. p. 325). 

2 The measure is from Mas'iidL The description of the buildings 
is the result of a careful comparison of the statements of Rufinus 
and Aphthonius ; but the latter is very far from clear even where 
he means to be precise. Aphthonius visited Alexandria c. 315 a. d. 
His Progymnasma/a gives a comparison between the acropolis of 
Athens and that of Alexandria, which is full of interest, if obscure : 
see Dr. Botti's Colonne TModosienne, pp. 24 seq. But the whole 
work should be read together with the same writer's L'Acropole 



Alexandria at the Conquest 383 

plateau on every side stood a range of handsome 
and lofty buildings, connected in various ways with 
the service of the temple. All round the great 
quadrangle enclosed by these buildings ran a broad 
colonnade ; while four other colonnades were built 
out at right angles, one from the centre of each side. 
Thus the outer colonnade with the others formed 
roughly the design of a cross set in an oblong. But 
the centre of the whole quadrangle and of the 
whole acropolis had been occupied by the temple of 
Serapis. This temple unfortunately had long been 
overthrown when the Arabs entered Alexandria -j- 
but there is no doubt that it was a building of sur- 
passing beauty and grandeur. The main fabric was 
oblong: it enclosed a central hall upheld by great 
columns of most precious marble, and its walls 
were of marble, within and without. In the midst of 
the hall stood a colossal chryselephantine statue of 
Serapis, whose outspread arms nearly touched the 
wall on either side, the left hand bearing a sceptre, 
while under the right hand of the deity was a 
monstrous image of Cerberus, round whose triple 
head of lion, dog and wolf coiled the folds of 
a huge python \ The whole chamber was em- 
bellished with priceless works of sculpture in 
marble and bronze, among which a series repre- 
senting the combats of Perseus was conspicuous. 
Adjoining the temple walls, and running round 
them, was a magnificent colonnade, which thus stood 
parallel with the outer colonnade, and was joined on 

d' Alexandrie et le Serapeum, to both of which I am much in- 
debted. 

* Macrobius, lib. i. c. 20. So Pseudo - Callisthenes (Bibs 
*AX€^ai/S/oov, c. 33), describes the image as rrj Se^ta x^'/^^ Ko/Atjorra 
Briptov TToXviiopcjiOv Ty 8c eviavvfiio (TKyjirrpov KarixovTa. 



384 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

to it by the four cross colonnades above mentioned. 
But those porticoes which girt the temple were of 
exceptional splendour. The capitals of the columns 
were made of bronze overlaid with gold ; the ceil- 
ings were covered with gold or brilliant colours ; 
and walls and floors were of costliest marble ^ 

But, above all, it was from these temple cloisters 
that doors opened into those bays or chambers of 
the main fabric, some of which contained the great 
library of Alexandria 2, while others had served as 
shrines for the ancient divinities of Egypt. Some- 
where in the temple precincts had stood two antique 
obelisks ; there had also been a marble fountain of 
great size and beauty; and at whatever time the 

^ The description of Ammianus Marcellinus is worth quoting 
(xxii. 16): ' His accedunt altis sublata fastigiis templa, inter quae 
eminet Serapeum : quod licet minuatur exilitate verborum, atriis 
tamen columnariis amplissimis et spirantibus signorum figmentis 
et reliqua operum multitudine ita est exornatum ut post Capitolium, 
quo se venerabilis Roma in aeternum toUit, nihil orbis terrarum 
ambitiosius cernat/ Possibly the plan given of the temple of Isis 
and Serapis at Rome, conjecturally restored, may furnish some 
idea of the arrangement at Alexandria: see Lafaye, Histoire du 
Culte des Divinites d'Alexandn'e (Paris, 1883), plan facing p. 224. 
The language of Tacitus is very restrained [Bist. iv. 84); he 
merely notes that the temple was of grandeur proportioned to the 
size of t"he city (' pro magnitudine urbis extructum') — a phrase which 
Matter strangely misunderstands, alleging that Tacitus compares 
the whole group of buildings to a town — ' cet ensemble que Tacite 
compare a une ville' {^cole d'Alexandrte, t. i. p. 323). The same 
mistake occurs in de Saint-Martin, who says, 'Sa grandeur, dit 
Tacite, ^galait celle d'une ville' {Histoire du Bas Empire par 
Lebeau, t. iv. p. 406 n.). 

* This seems the undoubted meaning of Aphthonius' language : 
TrapioKoSofiTjvraL 8e (rrjKol twv cttowv evSoOeVt ol fiev Ta/xeca yeyevT^fiivoi 
Tats f^cjSXoLS, roLS (juXoTrovovcriv aveioy/jievoi (^cXocro^eti/ kol ttoXlv 
airacrav eh iiova-Cav Tyj<s cro<^tas CTrai/oovres* ol Se tovs traXai Tt/x-av 

l8pVfJi€l/0L 6€0V<S. 



Alexandria at the Conquest 385 

great column, familiarly known as Diocletian s Pillar, 
was erected, it is certain that at the time of the 
Arab conquest it towered above the citadels One 
part of the Serapeum was occupied by a church 
dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Among other 
churches, which were also standing in the citadel, 
are named that of SS. Cosmas and Damian, and the 
Angelion^. The latter survived the conquest, and 

^ Dr. Botti (op. cit.) thinks that it was erected after the de- 
struction of the Serapeum which took place in 391, and calls it the 
Theodosian Column. 

^ According to Dr. Botti, the Angelion was originally called the 
Arcadion, and the Arcadion was originally called Claudion. He 
further identifies the Arcadion with the Hadrianon (op. cit., pp. 135, 
138, 139). These identifications seem to me scarcely established. 
The Hadrianon was a temple which had been turned into a sort of 
Record Office, where registers and archives were kept : see some 
remarks in Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. i. pp. 68-72, and ii. p, 182. 
It seems doubtful whether this building was on the Serapeum 
plateau at all ; nor is there any reason why it should have been 
turned into a church, when it served so useful a purpose. Gregoro- 
vius, however, for the conversion into a church refers to Epiphanius, 
Haeres. xix. 2 (The Emperor Hadrian, p. 358). Eutychius 
(Migne, t. iii, col. 1025-6 and col. 1030) records that Theophilus 
huilt a large church in the name of the Emperor Theodosius, 
covering it all over with gold, besides many other churches, such 
as that of St. Mary and that of St. John : while as to the Arcadion, 
he says * ecclesiam magnam Alexandriae struxit Arcadii nomine 
dicatam,' and this was certainly not prior to 398. This quite agrees 
with the much earlier record of John of Nikiou, who expressly 
states (p. 450) that the Patriarch Theophilus built a magnificent 
church to which he gave the name of the Emperor Theodosius, 
and another which he called after his son Arcadius : he also 
converted a temple of the Serapeum into a church which he called 
after Honorius. This church of Honorius, he adds, was also called 
the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian, and it lay opposite the 
church of St. Peter. Unless John is wrong, the Arcadion was a 
new structure at the end of the fourth century. But the question 
is one of some perplexity, because Sozomen's language {Hist. 
EccL V. 15) almost makes it appear that it was the temple of 

BUTLER C C 



386 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

being in danger of falling was splendidly reinstated 
towards the end of the seventh century by the 
Patriarch Isaac \ 

One other building remains to be noticed. Ad- 
joining the propylaeum, and forming part of it, was 
the Oecus or House, distinguished from the other 
buildings of the acropolis by a lofty golden dome, 
which rested on a double ring of columns. Its 
purpose is not clear, and it may have been merely 
ornamental; but it seems to have survived the destruc- 
tion of the temple, and is noticed in Arab chronicles 
with the 'Amud as Sawari^. Strange stories are 
told of the latter. It was part of a temple built 
by Solomon, according to the general opinion. Ibn 
al Fakih says that if a man threw a bit of pottery 
or glass against it with the words * By Solomon, 
son of David, break in pieces,' then it broke ; but 
without the talisman it broke not. Another legend 
was that if a man closed his eyes and walked 
towards the pillar, he always failed to reach it : and 
Suyutl naively records that he proved the truth of 
this himself by several trials. The same writer 
quotes *the learned men of Alexandria' as saying 
that upon the pillar was a cupola under which 
Aristotle sat to study astronomy — a reminiscence of 

Serapis which was turned into the Arcadion : to [jXv ovv ^epaTnov 
{st'c) wSc ^Xti) Koi /act' ov ttoXv €ts iKKXrjatav fxeTeo-KcvdcrdT] 'ApKaBiov 
Tov jSacrtXecos iTrww/jLov. Yet ^cpaTTLov must mean here the acropolis, 
not the temple merely, and fjL€T€(rK€vda6rj must mean * rebuilt,' not 
converted, because Sozomen makes it clear that the temple was 
pulled down. 

^ Am^lineau, Vze du Patriarche Copte Isaac, pp. 57-8, 
^ This seems to be the * dome overlaid with brass which shone 
like gold,' which is spoken of by Suyuti : but Makrizi speaks of 
' a dome formed of one block of white marble of the finest work- 
manship.' They may be the same. 



Alexandria at the Conquest 387 

the dome and the library. Makrizt's account of the 
Serapeum, quoted from Mas*udi, is truthful enough : 
'There was in Alexandria a great palace without 
equal on earth, standing on a large mound opposite 
the gate of the city. It was 500 cubits long and 
250 broad, with a huge massive gateway, each pier 
of which was a monolith and the lintel a monolith. 
In the palace were about 100 pillars, and in front of 
it a great pillar, of unheard-of size, surmounted by 
a capital.* Yet the same writer alleges that the 
pillar rocks in a wind. All these extraordinary 
buildings were supposed to have been raised by 
genii or giants of old. ' The jinn built an assembly 
hall for Solomon at Alexandria with 300 columns, 
each 30 cubits high, of variegated marble polished 
like mirrors, so that a man could see in them who 
was walking behind him. In the midst of the hall 
was a pillar 1 1 1 cubits high. The roof was a single 
block of green marble, square, hewn by the jinn^.' 
These jinn were men whose heads resembled great 
domes, and whose eye would rend a lion. Another 
explanation, however, is that in ancient days the 
stones were as soft as clay, or, as another writer 
puts it, * In the marble quarries it was easy to 
'work before mid-day, for the marble was as soft 
as paste ; but in the afternoon it became hard and 
intractable.' 

These tales record the astonishment of the Arabs 
at the buildings which now passed into their posses- 
sion. It is melancholy to trace the record of their 
destruction, though only fair to say that much of it 
was due to earthquakes. By the eleventh century 
the city was all in ruins, though strangely enough 
the many columns, which some writers make 500 in 
^ Suyftti, Husn al Muhddarah, p. 55. 
C C 2 



388 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

number, are all described as standing \ A hundred 
years later Idrlsl saw them still : round the great 
pillar was a court with sixteen columns on each of 
the shorter sides and sixty-seven on each of the 
longer^. Benjamin of Tudela^ in 1 160 saw * a large 
and beautiful building with columns of marble divid- 
ing the various halls ' in what he calls the * school of 
Aristotle/ just as the Muslim writers call it the 
'porch of Aristotle' or the 'house of wisdom/ 
But in 1167 a wretched governor of Alexandria, 
named Karaja, the vizier of Saladin, had all these 
columns broken down and most of them taken to 
the seashore, where they were thrown into the sea 
to render an enemy's landing more difficult^. And 
from that day to this Diocletian's Pillar has risen in 
solitary grandeur as the one remnant of that match- 
less group of buildings which stood on the acropolis 
of Alexandria ^ 

Reserving for the moment the question of the 
fate which befell the great library, one may pass 
on to notice one or two other monuments. The 
amphitheatre, which the Arabs mention, seems to 
have been one which lay to the west of the citadel, 

^ Dr. Botti, Colonne Theodosienne, pp. i, 2. ^ Id., ib., p. 12, 

^ Id., ib. But these columns probably belonged to the exterior 
colonnades : those of the temple had disappeared, or at least been 
overthrown, in the time of Theodosius. 

* Makrizi, Khitai, vol. i. p. 159. *Abd al Latff, however, who 
says that he saw about 400 large columns broken into pieces and 
lying on the edge of the shore, thinks that Kardja's intention was 
either to deaden the force of the waves which were undermining 
the city walls, or to keep off the enemy's fleet — in any case a 
childish piece of mischief, he adds (p. 113). 

^ Yakiit's impression is thus given : * When I visited Alexandria, 
I went round the city and saw nothing admirable or wonderful 
except one column called the 'Amud as Sawari by the gate called 
Bab ash Shajarah.' 



Alexandria at the Conquest 389 

although there certainly was a hippodrome also out- 
side the eastern gate of the city. This amphi- 
theatre, they sayS held a million spectators, so 
arranged that one and all, from the highest tier of 
seats to the lowest, could see all that went on and 
hear every word uttered without any crushing or 
inconvenience. The theatre, which stood some- 
where in the Bruchion, was a distinct and a magnifi- 
cent building. 

But it was on the Pharos that the Arabs lavished 
their greatest wonder and admiration. This colossal 
lighthouse-tower stood, as is well known, at the 
north-east corner of the island of Pharos, which was 
linked to the mainland city by a long causeway on 
arches called the Heptastadium. At the time of 
the conquest the island was fringed by quays and 
occupied by various buildings, conspicuous among 
which stood the two churches of St. Sophia and 
St. Faustus and the guest-house which lay between 
them 2. In Caesars time the island had been occu- 
pied by a large village, the people of which were 
lawless freebooters. The lighthouse itself he calls 
a marvellous piece of architecture^. Strabo de- 
scribes it as a tower wonderfully constructed of 
white stone in several stories ^ It was built by 
Sostratus of Cnidus in the reign of Ptolemy Phila- 
delphus as a guide for mariners, and though it 
had suffered from the action of the sea and other 
causes, yet it had always been strengthened as need 

^ Makrizt, op. cit., p. 158. 

^ These details are from John Moschus, Prat. Spir, cap. 105 and 
106. 

* Pharus est in insula turris magna altitudine, mirificis operibus 
exstructa, quae nomen ab insula accepit {BelL Civ, iii. sub fin.). 

* Geog, xvii. i. 6. 



390 The Arabi Conquest of Egypt 

arose ^ and at the time of the Arab conquest it was 
in full working order and flashed the sun by day and 
its own fire by night for many leagues over the sea. 
The coast was low and harbourless : moreover 
vessels coming to Alexandria had to cross a wide 
space of open sea out of sight of all land : so that it 
was an enormous advantage to have this conspicuous 
landmark visible by day and by night at a distance 
of sixty or seventy miles. 

Many remarks on the Pharos may be found in 
the Arab writers. Istakhri^ says, * The manarah, 
founded on a rock in the sea, contains more than 
300 rooms, among which the visitor cannot find his 
way without a guide.' Ibn Piaukal^ adds that it 
'was built of hewn stones fitted together and 
fastened with lead : there is nothing like it on 
earth,' and the same style of construction is recorded 
by Idrist^ more fully. 'The lighthouse,' he says, 
' is unparalleled in all the world for its architecture 
and strength of structure. It is built of the hardest 
Tiburtine stone, bedded in molten lead, and so firmly 
set that the joints cannot be loosened. On the 
north side the sea washes against it. Its height 
is 300 cubits, taking three palms to the cubit, 
and so its length is 100 statures of man. From 

^ The Greek Anthology records such a case of repair (674 Epid.): 
I have rendered the lines thus in Amaranth and Asphodel'. — 
' A tower of help for mariners on the main 

Flashing my safety-beacon through the night, 
I tottered in the thundering hurricane 
Until Ammonius' toil renewed my might. 
The wild waves past, to him upon the land, 
As to the great Earth-shaker, sailors lift the hand.' 
2 Bihl. Geog. Arab, part i. p. 51. 
^ Id., ib., part ii. p. 99. 
* Geographia Nubiensis, pp. 94-5. 



Alexandria at the Conquest 391 

the ground to the middle story are 70 statures, 
from the middle to the top 26, and the lantern on 
top IS 4 statures^/ There is no doubt about the 
general design of the tower. It was built in four 
stories, each less in diameter than the one below. 
The lowest, or ground story, was square on plan; 
the next was octagonal ; the third circular ; and the 
topmost was an open lantern containing fireplaces 
for the beacons and a wonderful mirror. On the top 
of the square and at the foot of the octagonal section 
was a broad terrace commanding a wide view of 
city and sea, and a smaller terrace of the same kind 
marked the division between the octagonal and the 
circular section^. The ascent was by a wide stair- 

^ What precise measure is intended I do not know, but even if 
a stature were put at only 5 feet, the height of the tower would 
be 500 feet. Most of the Muslim writers give 300 cubits as the 
measurement, and one will not be far wrong in taking this as 
500 feet English. It is curious that Idrisi does not distinguish 
between the first and the second stages of the tower. Ya'kfibl 
gives the height as 175 cubits, and Mas'udi says 'it is now (tenth 
century) 230 cubits, but was formerly 400, it having been ruined 
by time, earthquakes, and weather.* Kazwint says that the first 
and second stories were equal in height (he makes each 90 cubits); 
and if this were so, Idrisi's measurements would give 105 cubits 
for each of the first and second stories, 78 for the third, and 
12 for the lantern. This sounds probable enough. Makrizi 
mentions a different measurement, viz. 121 cubits for the square 
story, 8ii for the octagonal, and 31^ for the circular. Ibn al 
Fakih says that, according to some, the cubits were ' royal ' cubits, 
so that 300 would equal 450 ' cubits of the hand.' *Abd al Latif 
says that he read the MS. of a traveller who measured the Pharos 
and gives 121, 81^ and 31^ for the three stories, but he adds 
10 cubits for the lantern or shrine (masjid) on the top. Holm 
in his History of Greece (tr. F. Clarke, vol. iv. p. 304) gives the 
height as 650 feet: but for merely mechanical reasons this is 
scarcely credible. 

* Mas'udi in Bihl. Geog. Arab, part viii. p. 46, and other writers. 



392 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

case roofed over with slabs spanning the space 
between the walls ^ ; and under the stairs were 
chambers. After the second story the staircase 
narrowed so as to fill the whole of the interior, save 
for a shaft like a well in the centre : it was lighted 
by small w^indows from top to bottom^. 
' The number of the rooms and the intricacy of the 
interior made a great impression on the Arabs. * It 
is said that whoever entered this lighthouse became 
distracted and lost his way, by reason of the number 
of chambers and stories and corridors which it con- 
tained. . • . So it is reported that when the Moors 
arrived at Alexandria in the caliphate of Al Muktadir 
with an army, a body of them entered the lighthouse 
on horseback and lost their way, till they came upon 
a crevice in the crab of glass ^ upon which the 
structure was founded; and many of them fell 

* Yakut, vol. i. pp. 256 seq. 

'^ It does not seem quite clear whether there were actual steps or 
an inclined plane for mounting the tower. Some writers speak 
of steps, while Mas'udi says ' it was ascended by an inclined 
passage without steps,' and others say that a loaded horse could 
ascend to all the rooms. It would be interesting to know how 
the fuel for the beacon-fire was raised to the top of the tower ; but 
it was probably hoisted up the shaft in the centre by a windlass. 

^ I have explained the origin of this above, p. 376. No writer 
better illustrates the confusion between the Pharos and the pair of 
obelisks than Ibn al Fakih, who after saying {Bibl. Geog, Arab, 
part v. p. 70), 'the manarah of Alexandria stands on a crab 
of glass in the sea,' remarks on the next page, ' the manarah of 
Alexandria has two pillars standing on two images, one of brass 
and one of glass : the brazen image is in the form of a scorpion, 
the glass in the form of a crab. The observatory is beside them, 
and it is called the manarah* Suyuti quotes a statement that the 
lighthouse was built on vaults of glass, which again rested on 
a crab of brass ! Yakut explains the glass foundation by the 
legend that when Alexander (sic) wished to build the tower, he 
threw stone, brick, granite, gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, glass and 



Alexandria at the Conquest 393 

through it and perished \' But even more marvel- 
lous stories are told about the mirror, which all the 
Arab writers agree in regarding, quite apart from 
the lighthouse on which it stood, as one of the 
wonders of the world. In the ancient Egyptian 
city of Rakoti there is said to have been a dome on 
pillars of brass, all gilded, and above this dome rose 
a lighthotise, on which was a mirror of composite 
metal, five spans in diameter 2. This mirror was 
used as a burning-glass to destroy the ships of 
an enemy. It was in imitation of this that in 
Alexander's city the mirror was erected on the 
summit of the Pharos : but its purpose was rather 
to reveal a distant einemy * coming from the land of 
the Romans/ This was soon exaggerated : and 
* Abdallah, son of * Amr, is quoted as saying, ' One 
of the wonders of the world is the mirror hanging 
in the manarah at Alexandria, which shows what is 
passing at Constantinople ^! But Mas*udi describes 
it as * a large mirror of transparent stone, in which 
ships could be seen coming from Rum at too great 
a distance for the eye to detect them': while another 

all kinds of minerals and metals into the sea to test them ; and 
when they were taken out and examined, the glass alone was found 
of full weight and unimpaired. Accordingly glass was chosen for 
the substructure. 

^ Makrizi. The account of the manarah begins vol. i. p. 155 
of the Khitat. 

^ Here Makrizt quotes Ibn Wasif Shah's History of Misrdim. 
Murtadi agrees : 'They made in the midst of that city a little turret 
on pillars of copper gilt, and set upon it a mirror consisting of 
divers materials, in length and breadth five spans, the turret 100 
cubits high. ... It was used as a burning-glass against the enemy. 
The Pharos also had not been made but for a mirror that was upon 
it' {Egyptian History, p. 102). 

^ Ibn al Fakih in Bibl. Geog. Arab, part v. p. 71. 



394 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

writer, in substantial agreement, alleges that the 
mirror was made of 'finely wrought glass ^,* and 
a third gives the material as * Chinese iron ' or 
polished steeP. All say that it showed vessels at 
sea far beyond the range of common vision : a man 
sitting under the mirror could see all the way to 
Constantinople. 

What was the purpose of this mirror? Was it 
a mere reflector to flash the sun-rays by day and 
the beacon-light by night ? and was it an ordinary 
mirror, or had it a complex refracting surface, so 
that it might really serve as a burning-glass under 
the intense heat of the sun in Egypt ? These are 
questions for men of science : but it is at least 
curious that, as early as the tenth century of our 
era, the Arab writers in their account of this mirror 
should anticipate the use of the telescope. It is also 
curious that different writers should describe the 
mirror as made of some transparent material — 
* finely wrought glass ' and ' transparent stone ' : for 
these terms suggest a lens rather than a mirror. Is 
it conceivable that the great Alexandrian school of 
mathematics and mechanics discovered and con- 
structed the lens, and that their discovery was lost 
and forgotten in the destruction of the Pharos ? 

That the Pharos was used as a signal-station as 
well as lighthouse is certain : but it is not quite 
clear whether the fire was kept up day and night. 
Idrisi speaks of a fire by night and *a cloud of 
smoke by day ' : but another account represents the 

' ZajdJ mudahhar is the term used by Makrtzt. 

"^ Suyuti, who says that the mirror was seven cubits wide ; that it 
showed all ships coming from Europe ; and that it was used as 
a burning-glass. * They turned the mirror towards the westering 
sun, and the rays being reflected burned up the enemy's ships/ 



Alexandria at the Conquest 395 

lighthouse keepers as living in the building and ready 
always to light the beacon by night ^. Unfortunately 
no evidence of the original practice is obtainable : 
for the Pharos suffered serious injury within a century 
of the conquest. The story is that in the caliphate 
of Al Walid ibn 'Abd al Malik, i. e. early eighth 
century, the Romans were so annoyed at the 
advantage which the Pharos gave to the Muslims 
as a watch-tower against sea-raids and surprises, 
that they resolved to destroy it by stratagem. 
Accordingly one of the courtiers ^ of the Emperor 
went with rich presents to the Caliph, and feigning 
to have incurred the Emperors mortal enmity, 
professed his desire to become a Muslim. He 
was believed and welcomed to Islam, and to the 
friendship of Al Walld, whose imagination he fired 
with stories of buried treasure in Syria. This was 
duly discovered ; and the Caliph, becoming greedy 
of wealth, listened eagerly to the report of the wily 
Roman, that a vast store of gold and jewels, which 
had belonged to the ancient kings of Egypt, was 
buried in vaults and chambers beneath the Pharos* 
So the Caliph sent troops to conduct the search, and 
they pulled down half of the lighthouse tower, 
removing the mirror, before the plot was suspected. 

^ Arculfus (c. 670 A.D.) speaking of this 'very high tower' says, 
' Men are employed there by whom torches and other masses of 
wood, which have been collected, are set on fire to serve as a guide 
to the land, showing the narrow entrance to the straits. . . . Round 
the island also,' he adds, 'beams of immense size have been 
regularly laid down to prevent the foundations from yielding to 
the constant collision of the sea' (Pal. Pil. Text Soc, vol. iii. 
P- 50). 

^ Another account says that it was some Christian priests, who 
showed an ancient book containing the secret of the buried 
treasure. 



396 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Then the people resolved to stop the work of 
destruction, and to send a report to the Caliph : 
whereupon the traitor fled by night to his own 
country. But of course the mischief was done : one 
half, or at least a third part, of the tower had been 
thrown down : and the traitor had accomplished his 
purpose by destroying the magic mirror. Too late 
the Arabs saw that they had been duped : * they 
rebuilt the manirah of brick, but could not raise it 
to its former height ; and so, when they replaced the 
mirror, it was useless \' 

There is no reason to question the substantial 
truth of this story : nor is it surprising that the 
damage proved irreparable. The Pharos must 
indeed have been a miracle of construction to stand 
secure for centuries, while towering in the air to 
that astonishing height; and the builders under 
the Arab dominion could not hope to rival the 
architecture of the Ptolemies. Indeed Masudi 
seems to deny that there was any attempt at 
restoration, though in this he is probably mistaken. 
Little is known of the subsequent history of the 
Pharos. Ahmad ibn Tulun ^ built a wooden cupola 
on its summit c 875 a.d. — a statement which seems 
to show that the building w^as no longer used as 
a lighthouse, but merely as a watch-tower. This 
cupola did not last very long; and when it was 
swept away by the winds, a small mosque was built 
in place of it under Al Malik al Kamil. A few 
years after Ibn Tultan one of the piers on the 
western side, where the sea washed the walls, was 
found to be ruined, and was rebuilt by Kha- 

^ Suyutt, op. cit., p. 53 : but the Arab writers generally think 
that the mirror was broken in pieces, as is far more probable. 
^ The author of Mabdhij al Ftkr, quoted by As Suyuti. 



Alexandria at the Conquest 397 

marawaih \ In the next century, on the loth 
day of Ramadan, a.h. 344 (December 28, 955 a.d.), 
about thirty cubits of the top were thrown down by 
a severe earthquake, which was felt all over Egypt, 
Syria, and North Africa, in a series of fierce shocks 
lasting half an hour 2. In 1182 another mosque on 
the summit is recorded by Ibn Jubair^ who gives 
the height of the tower as * above 150 cubits,' 
showing how it had diminished from its original 
stature : and Yakut, writing perhaps forty years 
later, actually gives a diagram showing * a square 
building like a fort,' with a shortened second story, 
and a small cupola above it. Upon this he rather 
hastily argues that all accounts of the vast size of 
the Pharos are 'shameless lies/ But he hardly 
seems aware of the great changes which time had 
wrought. * I sought the place of the mirror and 
found no trace of it,' he remarks ; as if he expected 
to find it on the reduced and mutilated building, 
which was all that remained at the date of his visit*. 
But even greater destruction followed. In the time 
of Kalaun the Pharos is already described by an 
Arab writer as a 'shapeless ruin^,' in spite of some 
repairs carried out by the Sultan Baibars : and 
though there was some subsequent attempt at 
restoration, the earthquake of 1375 seems to have 
demolished all but the lowest story of the tower ^. 



* Al Mas udi. 

2 ' While I was at Fustat/ says Mas udi. 



^ Quoted by Makrizi. 

* Yakut's account of the manarah may be read in Wiistenfeld's 
Geographisches Worterhuch, vol. i. pp. 286 seq. 

'^ Ibn Fadl Allah, quoted by Suyuti. 

^ There can be little doubt that the Fort Pharos which was 
battered in the bombardment of Alexandria is on the site of the old 
lighthouse. Some part of it appears to be ancient, but apparently 



398 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

But if the Pharos has long vanished, the tradition 
of its grace, and even of its use, has been preserved 
in the Egyptian minaret, to which it gave the name 
and to which it served as models Though the 
mediaeval minarets of Cairo vary in combination 
of design, in many of them one may see an exact 
reproduction of the design of Sostratus, which was 
a tower springing four-square from the ground, then 
changing to a smaller octagonal and from the 
octagonal to a still smaller circular shaft, and 
crowned on the top with a lantern. 

No antiquarian history of Alexandria has yet been 
written ; and much research, of a kind now in many 
places impossible, would be needed to provide 
materials for it and to settle points at issue. But 
even a rough sketch like the present, wanting as it 
is, may serve to give some idea of what met the 
eyes of the Arabs as they entered the city. Nor 
was the view from without less imposing. The 
northern walls followed the curving shore, as we 
have seen, while the southern walls rested on the 
canal, till it entered and flowed through the city ; 
and all round on every side they were built with 
such strength and skill, and so varied by towers and 

archaeologists have not seriously examined the site with a view 
to planning and preserving what may be worth preserving An 
American writer, Mr. Kay, thinks that he discovered traces of the 
original foundations under the walls of the existing fortress, which 
was built by Kait Bey circa 1480: see the American Architect and 
Building News, vol. xi. no. 348, pp. 101-2, Aug. 26, 1882. Others, 
however, place the site to the east of the fort on a spot now covered 
by the sea. 

^ This theory I broached in the Athencsum of Nov. 20, 1880, 
and I still hold by it. As to the name, mandrah is not now used 
in Egypt for minaret, but it was so used originally, as the Shaikh 
Muhammad 'Abduh, the Grand Mufti, informs me. 



Alexandria at the Conquest 399 

bastions, that their architecture roused the enthusiasm 
of travellers far into the Middle Ages ^ 

* Nearly all plans of ancient Alexandria err in leaving a con- 
siderable space between the walls and the canal. That this is 
wrong is conclusively proved first by the testimony of John of 
Nikiou in the story of the fighting between Nicetas and Bonosus 
given in the opening chapters of this book, and next by the explicit 
evidence of Arculfus, who remarks, * The city is surrounded by 
a long circuit of walls fortified by frequent towers constructed along 
the margin of the river and the curving shore of the sea ' (op. cit., 
p. 52). Again the same writer says : 'On the south it is surrounded 
by the mouths of the Nile, on the north by the sea ; so that on 
this side and on that it is surrounded by water ' (id., ib., p. 49). Of 
course I am aware that the city shrunk and the walls with it, so 
that the line standing in the Middle Ages differed considerably from 
the original walls : see H. de Vaujany's Recherches sur les anciens 
Monuments situes sur le Grand Port d^Alexandrie^ pp. 74-84 
(Alex. 1888). But the general style of the walls was probably 
preserved. Certainly they made a great impression on travellers 
even seven or eight centuries after the conquest. Thus in 1350 
Ludolph von Suchem writes : * Now Alexandria is the first seaside 
city of Egypt, one of the best of the Soldan's cities. On one side 
it stands on the Nile, the river of Paradise, which falls into the sea, 
and its other side is on the sea. This city is exceedingly beauteous 
and strong, and is fenced about with lofty towers and walls, which 
seem impregnable. ... In this city still stands entire to this day 
a great and exceeding beauteous church, adorned in divers fashions 
with mosaic work and marble. . . . Indeed many other churches are 
still standing in Alexandria at this day, and in them rest the bodies 
of many saints' {Description of the Holy Land, tr. by Aubrey 
Stewart, pp. 45-6, London, 1895). So Breydenbach, c. i486, 
speaks of viewing the 'gloriosam civitatem Alexandriam, mari magno 
pro parte una cinctam, pro alia amoenissimis et fertilissimis ortis 
circumseptam ' ; and he goes on to say that several of his fellow 
travellers mounting the outer wall took a view of the circuit of 
fortresses and moats, and agreed * that they had never seen a more 
lovely or better fortified city, with beautiful ramparts and strong 
and lofty walls and towers.' Yet within they found ruin and 
desolation, save for a few churches (Descriptio Terrae Sanctae, 
p. 120). A plan of ancient Alexandria may be found in the 
Khedivial Library at Cairo, dated c. 1600 : it shows a complete 



400 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

circuit of walls, double in places, but is poorly drawn without scale 
or perspective. Much better is D'Anville's plan at p. 52 of his 
Memoires sur VJ^gypte, showing the ancient and modern walls 
together. A rude sketch is given in Janssonius' Theatrum Urhium, 
t. 4 (Amstelodami, n. d.). In J. White's AegypHaca (Oxon. 1801), 
there is a plan and a good deal of information : so in Parthey's 
A lexandrinisches Museum (Berlin, 1838). Most of the encyclopaedias 
give some kind of plan, as does Tozer's Selections from Straho. 
All these plans are small, and most of them take for granted 
debateable points. The plan in Matter's Ecole cfAlexandne is 
somewhat larger, though wanting in detail and in accuracy. 
N^routsos Bey in VAncienne Alexandria also gives a plan on 
a larger scale, which is perhaps the best, although it seems in 
places not to distinguish Byzantine from Arab walls, and it is clearly 
wrong in placing the church of St. Mark and the Tetrapylus south 
of the Caesarion : but the Phiale and canal ports are well shown. 
The new Museum at Alexandria contains a plan of the ancient 
and modern town on a very large scale. Present researches will 
doubtless in time recover most of the old lines of the city, though 
the subsidence of the soil over the whole area of ancient Alexandria, 
as well as the encroachment of the sea, renders the reconstruction 
of the plan very difficult. See Dr. Hogarth's article on his excava- 
tions in Egypt Exploration Fund Report^ 1894-5. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA 

Question of its destruction by the Arabs. Abfi '1 Faraj's story. 
Internal evidence against it. John Philoponus not alive at the 
invasion. Did the Library exist then? The original Museum 
Library. Probably burned in time of Julius Caesar. Library from 
Pergamus. The Daughter Library in the Serapeum. Destruction 
of the Temple of Serapis. Extent of the destruction : various 
authorities. The Library annexes perished : v^hat became of the 
books ? Silence of two centuries of writers. Bearing of the Treaty 
of Alexandria on the question. Silence of writers after the conquest. 
Summary and conclusion of the argument. 

Whether the Arabs upon the capture of the city 
burned or did not burn the great Library of Alex- 
andria is a question which has long been keenly 
debated : but inasmuch as learned opinions still 
differ, and the problem remains unsolved, it cannot 
be left unexamined in a work professing to deal with 
the conquest. 

The story as it stands in Abu '1 Faraj ^ is well 
known, and runs as follows. There was at this time 
a man, who won high renown among the Muslims, 

^ Ed. Pococke, p. 114 tr. and 180 text. Renaudot thinks the 
story has an element of untrustworthiness : Gibbon discusses it 
rather briefly and disbelieves it. Pococke translates only the 
Arabic abridgement of Abft '1 Faraj. In the Nineteenth Century 
for October, 1894, there is an article on the question by Vasudeva 
Rau, who alleges (p. 560) that the story is not in the original 
Syriac, and probably was a later interpolation. The abridgement, 
however, was written by Abfi '1 Faraj himself, and the suggestion 
of interpolation is a mere conjecture. Nor would the fact, if 
established, be material. The article generally is based rather on 
a pnorz argument than research, and consequently is not of much 
value. 

BUTLER D d 



402 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

named John the Grammarian. He was an Alexan- 
drian, and apparently had been a Coptic priest, but 
was deprived of his office owing to some heresy by 
a council of bishops held at Babylon. He lived to 
see the capture of Alexandria by the Arabs, and 
made the acquaintance of *Amr, whose clear and 
active mind was no less astonished than delighted 
with John's intellectual acuteness and great learn- 
ing. Emboldened by 'Amr's favour, John one day 
remarked, ' You have examined the whole city, and 
have set your seal on every kind of valuable : I make 
no claim for aught that is useful to you, but things 
useless to you may be of service to us.' *What 
are you thinking of ? ' said *Amr. * The books of 
wisdom,' said John, 'which are in the imperial 
treasuries.' ' That,' replied 'Amr, ' is a matter on 
which I can give no order without the authority of 
the Caliph.' A letter accordingly was written, put- 
ting the question to Omar, who answered : * Touch- 
ing the books you mention, if what is written in 
them agrees with the Book of God, they are not 
required : if it disagrees, they are not desired. 
Destroy them therefore.' On receipt of this judge- 
ment, *Amr accordingly ordered the books to be 
distributed among the baths of Alexandria and used 
as fuel for heating : it took six months to consume 
them. ' Listen and wonder,' adds the writer. 

Such is the story as it makes its appearance in 
Arabic literature. Abu '1 Faraj wrote in the latter 
half of the thirteenth century, and he says nothing 
about the source from which he derived the story : 
but he is followed by Abu '1 Fida in the early four- 
teenth century, and later by Makrizi ^ It is true 

^ This author, like 'Abd al Latif, reports the story by way of 
allusion, taking it for granted. Thus speaking of the Serapeum 



The Library of Alexandria 403 

that ' Abd al Latif, who wrote about 1 200, mentions 
incidentally the burning of the Library by Omar's 
order, and, giving no details, seems to take the fact for 
granted. This allusion seems to show that in his day 
the tradition was current. Nevertheless the story is 
not to be found in any written document until five 
and a half centuries after the capture of Alexandria, 
and it is challenged by the silence of every writer 
from John of Nikiou to Abu Salih. It may of course 
be argued that it survived for several hundred years 
as an unwritten tradition; and this view may be 
held to receive confirmation from the undoubted 
fact that the tradition lives to this day among 
the Copts, although they give seventy days, instead 
of six months, as the period, of burning. There is, 
however, nothing to show that this Coptic tradition 
is older than Abu '1 Faraj : in other words, though 
current as a popular story, it may have been 
derived from mediaeval writers. This one can 
neither prove nor disprove : but the doubt deprives 
the tradition of independent value. 

Let us, however, examine the story as it stands. 
It is undeniably picturesque, and the reply of Omar 
has the true Oriental flavour. This really is the 
strongest point about it. But unfortunately precisely 
the same reply of Omar is recorded in connexion 
with the destruction of books in Persia ^ ; and just 

he says, ' Some think that these columns upheld the Porch of 
Aristotle, who taught philosophy here : that it was a school of 
learning: and that it contained the library which was burnt by 
'Amr on the advice of the CaHph Omar' (Khitat, vol. i. p. 159). 

^ See Prof. Bury's ed. of Gibbon, vol. v. p. 454 n., where Ibn 
Khaldfin, quoted by Haji Khalfah, is given as the authority. I may 
add that the feelings of the Muslims towards the books of the 
idolatrous Persians would be very different from their feelings towards 

D d 2 



404 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

as the story of * Amr s captivity and his escape from 
detection and death owing to the timely cuff 
administered by Wardan, has been taken out of its 
proper setting and put into the siege of Alexandria 
by MusHm writers, so may this anecdote be wrongly 
told of the Alexandrian Library, although it may rest 
on a foundation of fact, such as the evil wit of Omar's 
words seems to postulate. But there are other 
points in the story which will not bear the strain of 
criticism. Granting for a moment that the destruc- 
tion of the Library took place as related, we have to 
believe that, instead of being made into a bonfire on 
the acropolis, the books were laboriously put into 
baskets and taken down to the city ; that they were 
then laboriously distributed among the countless 
baths ; and that they served as fuel for the space of 
six months. This is a tissue of absurdities. Had the 
books been doomed, they would have been burnt on 
the spot. Had *Amr refused them to his friend 
Philoponus, he would not have placed them at the 
mercy of every bath-keeper in the city. If he had 
so placed them, John Philoponus or any other person 
might have rescued a vast number of them at a 
trifling cost during the six months they are alleged 
to have lasted. Further, it cannot be questioned 
that in the seventh century a very large proportion 
of the books in Egypt were written on vellum ^ 
Now vellum is a material which will not burn as fuel, 

the books of the Christians. In their early history at least the 
Muslims disliked the destruction of the written name of God. 

^ Drs. Grenfell and Hunt have shown, against the received 
opinion, that the use of papyrus in book-form remained as long as 
Greek was written in Egypt, although vellum was preferred by the 
Copts in particular : see Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. ii. pp. 2-3. 
Still even the more ancient books in the Serapeum Library would 
have been mostly on vellum. 



The Library of Alexandria 405 

and all the Caliph's orders could not make it burn : 
what then became of all these manuscripts ? And 
when one has deducted all the writings on vellum, 
how can it be seriously imagined that the remainder 
of the books would have kept the 4,000^ bath- 
furnaces of Alexandria alive for 180 days ? The 
tale, as it stands, is ridiculous ; one may indeed listen 
and wonder. 

But, it may be said, these small points are un- 
fairly pressed ; a minute dissection o£ details will 
not get rid of the broad fact of the destruction by 
burning. Let us then relinquish mere internal criti- 
cism, and pass on to consider how far external 
evidence is for or against the main facts of the 
story. There are two points presumably vital — 
the existence of John Philoponus ^ at the time of 
the conquest, and the existence of the Library. 
Now there can be very little doubt about the former 
point ; John was not alive in 642. I need not 
recapitulate the whole proof of this statement. It 
is known that John was writing as early as 540^, 

^ I have already shown, p. 384 n., that this figure, given by the 
Muslim writers, is doubtless exaggerated: but however the figure 
be reduced, Abu 'I Faraj's statement will not stand the test of 
simple arithmetic. 

^ The Arab story calls John * Grammaticus,' the word being 
transliterated by Abu '1 Faraj. There is no doubt that Philoponus 
is meant : see e.g. Nicephorus Callistus, who says, rov ypafifiarLKov 
^loidvvYjv OS kTTiKkrjOr] ^iXottovos (xviii. 45). 

^ I have already referred to Nauck in this connexion. But the 
facts are set out more clearly and accessibly in the Diet. Christ, 
Biog., s.v. Johannes Philoponus. The evidence that John's life lay 
in the sixth century, if not actually bounded by it, is conclusive, 
despite the doubtful document quoted by Gibbon from Fabricius 
as dated 618, and the statement attributed to Nicephorus which 
makes John a contemporary of George of Pisidia in the reign of 
Heraclius. The Nicephorus in question is Callistus, who wrote in 



4o6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

if not before the accession of Justinian in 527; and 
though he may have survived for a few years at the 
beginning of the seventh century, if he had been 
aHve in the year 642 he would not have been less 
than 120 years old. It is therefore clear that Philo- 
ponus had been dead for some thirty or forty years 
when *Amr entered Alexandria. 

The question whether the Library itself was in 
existence at that time is at once more interesting 
and more difficult of solution. The earliest and the 
most famous Library was, as is well known, in the 
Bruchion quarter. If the idea of founding this vast 
collection of the world's literature came from Ptolemy 
Soter, and if he actually formed the Library, it was 
completely equipped and organized by Philadelphus 
his successor. It seems to have been part of the 
splendid group of buildings known as the Museum ^. 

the fourteenth century, and is of no great authority : but I confess 
that he appears to be wrongly quoted. His evidence seems to me 
to tell wholly against the theory that Philoponus was alive in 642. 
For John is associated with Dioscorus, Gaius, and Severus of 
Antioch, as writing against the Council of Chalcedon and prevailing 
' until Justinian ascended the throne (527 a.d.), when these champions 
of heresy carried their studies into holes and corners ' (Hist, xviii. 
45 in Migne, Patr. Gr. t. 147, p. 422). Moreover John is described 
as aKfidcravTa cTrt rrjg 7rapov(Tr]<s rj-yefjiovLas, and the context shows 
that this refers to Justinian and not to Heraclius. Nor is John 
declared to be contemporary with George of Pisidia. As I read it, 
George is called contemporary, though much younger, wi'/k 
Leontius Monachus. Now Leontius Monachus seems to have died 
early in the seventh century — his list of Alexandrian Patriarchs 
closes with Eulogius, ob. 607 ; and Leontius Monachus uses 
language implying that John Philoponus was dead when he wrote 
(Migne, t. 86, col. 1187). Matter deals with this question of the 
date of Philoponus very inadequately [Nicole d Alexandrie, t. i. 

P- 339)- 

^ Prof. Mahaffy questions this point, for whatever reason : 
Empire of the Ptolemies^ p. 98. 



The Library of Alexandria 407 

The Museum, as Strabo says, adjoined the royal 
palaces, which were of vast extent, occupying quite 
one fourth of the whole area of the city. It con- 
sisted of a great central hall with a colonnade about 
it, and cloistered courts. These communicated with 
other buildings, such as the Schools of Medicine, 
Anatomy and Surgery, Mathematics and Astronomy, 
Law and Philosophy : a park was also attached, with 
a botanical garden and an observatory^ — all the 
apparatus of a great University. What was the 
precise structural arrangement of the Museum 
buildings, and where precisely the Library was 
situated, cannot be determined : nor indeed is there 
any agreement even about the site of the Museum. 
Strabo is provokingly silent concerning the Library, 
when his evidence would settle the question whether, 
as some ancient writers allege, it perished in the 
conflagration of 48 b. c, a few years before' his visit. 
Caesar was then besieged in the Bruchion quarter 
by the Egyptians under Achillas, and he set fire to 
the harbour shipping : it is alleged that the fire 



^ See an interesting pamphlet entitled La Bihliotheque des 
PtoUmees, by V. Nourisson Bey. The particular statement in the 
text is on p. 8 : but I have to acknowledge my debt to the writer 
on several points. Other authorities beside Parthey's Alexandri- 
nisches Museum and Ritschl's Alexandrinische Bihliotheken in 
Opuscula {1866) are Weniger, Alexandrinisches Museum (1875), 
Holm's History of Greece^ vol. 4, and SusemihFs Geschichte der 
griechischen Litter atur in der Alexandrinerzeit (189 1-2). Gustave 
le Bon in La Civilisation des Arahes (Paris, 1884) rejects the story 
of the burning of the Library ; but his work is rather a popular 
book than a serious study. Sedillot's Histoire Generate des Arahes 
(2nd ed., Paris, 1877) casts doubt on the story: but he does not 
discuss it closely. He refers, however, to the Revue Scieniifique de 
la France, 19 Juin, 1875, no. 51, pp. 1200 seq.j for an essay on the 
subject, which I have been unable to see. 



4o8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

spread and utterly destroyed the Library. Caesar 
himself — if he wrote the account ^ — gives no hint of 
any such catastrophe ; on the contrary, he remarks 
that Alexandria is practically fire-proof, as the archi- 
tects used no timber, but raised their buildings on 
vaulted substructures, and roofed them with stone 
or concrete 2. Such a remark would be deliberately 
misleading, if the writer were suppressing the fact 
that he witnessed and caused the burning of the 
Library. It is difficult either to convict or to clear 
Caesar of the charge. Plutarch has no doubt of 
the fact : * As his fleet was falling into the hands of 
the enemy, he was forced to repel the danger by fire : 
this spread from the dockyards and destroyed the 
great Library ^' Seneca clearly believed the story : 
*Four hundred thousand books were burned at 

^ If De Bello Alexandrino was written, as modern critics think, 
by Asinius Pollio, it is easy to understand the writer's silence on 
this incident. 

2 De Bello Civili iv. ad init. Yet somewhat later, when the 
Egyptians had suffered a great naval defeat, they are described as 
refitting all the old vessels they could muster and bringing up the 
Nile guard-ships. Oars were wanting to equip these vessels ; so 
the Egyptians stripped colonnades, gymnasia, and public buildings 
of their roofs to provide wood for the making of oars. This incon- 
sistency in the narrative deserves attention. Moreover John of 
Nikiou says that Diocletian burned the city — ' la livra aux flammes 
entibrement' (p. 417). Orosius speaking of Diocletian's victory 
says ' urbem direptioni dedit ' — an equally strong expression though 
fire is not mentioned {Hist. vii. 25. 8). Eulogius, brother of the 
martyred Macarius of Antioch, was sent by Constantine with an 
army to Alexandria and 'burned all the temples of Alexandria, 
destroyed them, and seized their possessions ' (Hyvernat, Actes des 
Martyrs, p. 74). These instances seem to show that Caesar's view 
is mistaken or exaggerated. 

Plut. Caes. 49 TTcpiKOTTTO/xei/os Tov (TToXov ^vay KOLO-Or) Slo. TTupos 
aTTwcraaOai rov klvSvvov o koI t^v fxeydXrjv ^t/^XLoOi^Krjv €K t(ov vctoptcov 
iTTLvefiofxevov SU^fiOeLpev. 



The Library of Alexandria 409 

Alexandria \' The language of Dio Casslus^ is 
rather odd : * The conflagration was widespread ; 
besides the dockyard and much else, the stores of 
corn perished, and the stores of books; and these 
books, it Is said, In vast numbers and of great value.' 
But there can be no doubt what the tradition was in 
the fourth century. The words of Ammlanus Mar- 
cellinus^ are plain enough; he speaks of Alexandria's 
'priceless libraries, about which ancient writers agree 
that the 700,000 volumes got together by the unre- 
mitting care of the Ptolemies were destroyed by fire 

^ Prof. Mahaffy, in quoting Seneca's sneer against Livy, seems 
inclined to accept his opinion that these books were valued rather 
as ornamenting the dining-hall than as aiding the advancement of 
learning {Empire of the Ptolemies, p. 99). One may perhaps prefer 
Gibbon's view : ' Livy had styled the library elegantiae regum 
curaeque egregium opus — a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly 
criticized by the narrow stoicism of Seneca' (chap. li). 

^ xlii. 38. I ras T€ aTroOrJKas /cat rov ctltov koX tcov jSt^XoiV — 
TrXcLOTTOiv Srj Kol dpco-TOiVy ws ^ao"t, y€VOfJL€V0iV — KavOyjvaL. The 
' storehouses for corn ' one can easily understand, but what are the 
' storehouses for books ' ? One cannot imagine, however, a vast 
collection of valuable books as piled in warehouses ready for 
exportation, nor book-warehouses as a part of the ordinary trade 
equipment of the docks. After all there is far less difference 
between aTroOyjKrj Twv ^t73Xo)v and pipXioOriK-q in the Greek than 
between book-warehouse and library in the English. 

* xxii. 16. Aulus Gellius gives the same number of books, 
but the estimates vary. Epiphanius, who also wrote in the fourth 
century, gives 54,800. See Parthey, Alexandrinisches Museum^ 
p. 77. The truth is that there was not one library but several: 
Ammianus even speaks of ' bibliothecae innumerabiles ' : and this 
fact may account for the difference in the estimates. Susemihl 
gives the number of books in the time of Callimachus as 42,800 in 
the Outer Library (which is doubtfully, I think, identified with the 
Serapeum), while in the Royal Library were 400,000 composite 
volumes or rolls and 90,000 simple {Geschichte der griechischen 
Litter atur in der Alexandrinerzeit, i. 342). Susemihl's account of 
the general arrangements (pp. 336 seq.) is interesting. 



4IO The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

in the Alexandrian war, when Caesar devastated 
the city.' Orosius closely agrees with this account : 
* During the combat orders were given to fire the 
royal fleet, which happened to be drawn on shore. 
The conflagration spread to part of the city, and 
burned 400,000 books, which were stored in a 
building which happened to be contiguous. So 
perished that marvellous record of the literary 
activity of our forefathers, who had made this vast 
and splendid collection of works of genius \' On 
the whole it seems more natural to believe than to 
disbelieve that the Library perished in Caesar's 
conflagration. 

But seven or eight years after this adventure of 
Caesar's, the library of the Kings of Pergamus was 
sent by Mark Antony to Alexandria ^. Whether 
the Museum was still able to house such a collection, 
or whether these volumes formed the foundation of 
the later Serapeum Library, is a question which has 

^ '■ In ipso praelio regia classis forte subducta iubetur incendi. 
Ea flamma cum partim quoque urbis invasisset quadringenta milia 
librorum proximis forte aedibus condita exussit, singulare profecto 
monumentum studii curaeque maiorum, qui tot tantaque inlustrium 
ingeniorum opera congesserant ' {Hisi. vi. 15. 31). Orosius seems 
to have had before him either the passage of Livy or that of Seneca. 
The words ' proximis forte aedibus condita ' might appear at first 
sight to bear out the singular theory of some critics that the books 
happened to he stored in a warehouse close to the shore. The 
improbability of such an arrangement is almost enough to refute 
the theory, nor would the word condita be chosen to express a 
temporary deposit of the kind. All difficulty vanishes \i forte is 
taken as qualifying proximis, as I have done in my translation. At 
the same time it looks as if both Orosius and Dio Cassius were 
following a common original not very clear in expression. 

^ Plutarch in his Life of Antony says that Antony gave to 
Cleopatra the libraries from Pergamus, which contained 200,000 
simple rolls. 



The Library of Alexandria 411 

exercised scholars ^ I think it very possible that 
neither alternative is true. We have already seen 
that the great temple of the Caesarion was begun by 
Cleopatra in honour of Julius Caesar and finished 
by Augustus; and that its libraries are mentioned 
among its most splendid embellishments ^. Nothing 
would be more natural than to suppose that, if the 
Museum Library had perished, room was provided 
for the Pergamus collection, or some part of it, in 
the Caesarion, while the remainder perhaps went to 
the Serapeum. 

However that may be, two things are fairly cer- 
tain ; that some of the Museum buildings remained 
in use till the time of Caracalla, who drenched the 
city with blood, closed the theatres, and suppressed 
the syssitia or Common Hall at the Museum in the 
year 216 a. d. ; and that at some date early in 
the Christian era, in place of the vanished Museum 
Library, another great Library was founded in the 
Serapeum on the acropolis. The Museum buildings 
are said to have been razed to the ground by Aure- 
lian ^ in 273, when he wrought havoc in the Bruchion 
quarter to punish the Alexandrians for the revolt 
of Firmus ; and the members or Fellows of the 
Museum then either fled over sea or took refuge in 
the Serapeum. The Serapeum Library was called 
the Smaller or ' Daughter Library *,' but it is not 

^ Susemihl thinks that the Pergamus collection was probably 
stored in the colonnades of the temple of Athene Polias (op. cit., ii. 
(i(i(i) : but where was this ? 

"^ By Philo Judaeus: see supra, p. 373. 

^ Eusebius, however, attributes the destruction of the Bruchion 
quarter to Claudian; and he may be right : see the note on p. 415 
of vol. ii of Heinechen's Eusebius. 

* Epiphanius, De Pond, et Mens. xii. Epiphanius was a bishop, 
for whose date see p. 409, n. 3. 



412 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

possible to fix a date either for the end of the 
Mother Library^ or for the beginning of the 
Daughter, though the latter is said to have been 
founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus. Nor is the 
question very material. We know that in the 
fourth century the elder Library had perished, and 
the younger had been some time established. 

Here then in the Serapeum all the traditions of 
the earlier learning were maintained ; the Univer- 
sity, with its great collection of books, was estab- 
lished; and that association of Aristotle's name 
with Alexandrian study which began at the Museum, 
was continued at the Serapeum unbroken 2. In other 
words, those courses of philosophic and scientific 
study which had made Alexandria the centre of the 

^ One is bound, however, to give the opinion of Dr. Botti: 
* Apres Septime Severe il n'est plus question de la grande biblio- 
theque. Apres Caracalla I'ancien Mus^e n existe plus : le Claudium 
tient ferme jusqu'a Aurdlien,' Colonne Theodosienne, p. 138. The 
Claudium was a sort of School of History opened by Claudius and 
attached to the Museum : it was not very successful. Dr. Botti 
seems to attribute the origin of the Daughter Library to Trajan or 
Hadrian : but see Prof. Mahaffy's Empire of the Ptolemies^ p. 167. 

"^ This explains the frequent connexion of Aristotle's name with 
the Serapeum buildings by Muslim writers : see above, p. 388. 
Matter is mistaken in thinking that this association first occurs 
in Benjamin of Tudela — * tradition que jusque-la aucun ^crivain 
n'avait constatee non plus' i^^cole ct Alexandrie^ t. i. pp. 327-8). 
The fact is that it is a commonplace of Coptic and Arabic tradition 
aHke : see e.g. the Paris Coptic MS. 129", f. 92 seq., translated in 
part by Mr. W. E. Crum, and shown to be founded on Eusebius 
{Proceedings 0/ Soc, Bihl. Arch., Feb. 12, 1902). The reference 
to Alexandrian learning and the school of Aristotle is on the twelfth 
page of Mr. Crum's paper. It is an easy transition from school in 
the sense o^ system of learning to school in the sense oi place oi 
learning ; and the traditional study of Aristotle's system gave rise 
to the belief that he had taught in person both at the Museum and 
at the Serapeum. 



The Library of Alexandria 413 

culture of the world were still in being ; only the 
seat of learning had been moved from the Museum 
to the Serapeum. 

But towards the end of the fourth century the 
Serapeum was doomed to destruction by the Chris- 
tians under Theophilus. We have already seen 
that in 366 the Caesarion was wrecked and plun- 
dered in a fierce religious contest, in which there is 
too much reason to think that the Caesarion library 
perished. As Christianity gathered strength, the 
war with paganism became fiercer. The Serapeum 
naturally served as the camp and fortress of the 
pagans ; and for a while they used the advantage 
which the position gave them to raid the city and 
slaughter the most zealous of the Christians. Siege 
was laid to the acropolis ; but before matters were 
forced to' the last arbitrament it was agreed to take 
the Emperor's decision. The edict of Theodosius 
pronounced wholly in favour of the Christians. It 
was read aloud between the contending parties in 
the court of the Serapeum ; and as the worshippers 
of the old Egyptian idols fled, the Christians, under 
their bishop Theophilus, dismantled and demolished 
the great temple of Serapis. This happened in the 
year 391, and the fact is uncontro verted. 

The case is changed when we come to the question, 
Did the Library perish in the ruin ? To that ques- 
tion no positive answer can be given ^ ; it is matter 

^ Yet positive opinions are ventured upon by some writers. 
Thus Nourisson Bey (La Bill, des PloUmees, p. 21) says that v^^hen 
the Serapeum was taken by the Christian force, which he puts in the 
year 389, the library was methodically plundered, and the books were 
sent to Rome and Constantinople, where Theodosius was forming 
a great collection. I do not know on what authority this assertion 
rests. Prof. Bury takes quite a different view in his edition of 
Gibbon (vol. iii. p. 495, App.): ' I conclude that there is no evidence 



414 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

of debate : one can only examine and test certain 
fragments of evidence, in the hope that they may 
justify a conclusion. Now there can be no manner 
of doubt that the temple itself was destroyed in 391, 
and that the destruction was thorough. It was razed 
to the foundations, as Eunapius alleges, perhaps with 
some exaggeration ; and one or more Christian 
churches were built upon the site. Since, however, 
there is no specific evidence that the Library perished 
in the destruction of the temple, one must show one 
of two things in order to prove the ruin of the 
Library — either (i) that the Library was housed in 
the temple, or (2) that the whole of the buildings on 
the acropolis were wrecked by the Christians under 
Theophilus^. Of these alternatives the second is 
easily refuted. I have already shown that as late as 
the twelfth century there were remains of considerable 
magnificence still standing. The exact position of 

that the Library of the Serapeum did not survive till the Saracen 
conquest.' Gibbon himself, of course, believes in the destruction 
of the Library by the Christians under Theophilus, and not by the 
Arabs under *Amr. Dr. Botti agrees with Nourisson Bey in affirm- 
ing at least the removal of the Library before 391 : ^ La hihliotheque 
fille tombee au pouvoir de George de Cappadoce est saisie par 
le gouvernement central de Constantinople en 362 : on pent se 
demander si elle ne fut pas brulee d'ordre de Jovien' (Colonne 
Theodosienne, p. 138). 

^ Matter justly says : ' To make the destruction complete, not 
only must the sanctuary of Serapis have been destroyed, but also 
its vast annexes — the courts, porticoes, dwelling-rooms, and the 
library, which had been established there over six centuries ' 
{^cole d'Alexandrte^ t. i. p. 321): but the word * there' rather 
begs the question. He thinks the damage to these buildings was 
slight and soon repaired; and his conclusion is that, as the 
remembrance of the older Museum faded, the Serapeum took its 
place in tradition as well as in fact, and that ' the new establish- 
ment so prospered, that at the time of the Arab conquest the 
Serapeum still possessed a considerable library.' 



The Library of Alexandria 415 

these remains is as unknown as their original pur- 
pose \ Accordingly their survival proves nothing 
except that, if the Library was in these buildings, it 
may have survived with them. There is, however, 
some fairly explicit evidence to show both the position 
of the Library and the amount of the destruction 
wrought by the Christians. For on the one hand we 
have the testimony of Aphthonius, who visited the 
Serapeum In the fourth century some time before its 
destruction ^ ; and on the other that of Rufinus, who 

^ I must, however, protest against Matter's inference from the 
passage in Benjamin of Tudela which he quotes (op. cit., pp. 327-8). 
Benjamin's words are : ' Outside the city is the School of Aristotle, 
tutor to Alexander. It is a great and beautiful building adorned 
with marble columns between every school. There are about 
twenty of these schools, to which people used to come from all 
parts of the world to hear the wisdom of Aristotle.' This passage 
proves unquestionably that in the twelfth century, among the fine 
buildings which remained, there were some twenty halls or rooms 
adjoining a colonnade : but it does not and cannot prove that these 
particular rooms were those used by students of philosophy. 
Tradition associated Aristotle with the Serapeum buildings in 
general, and therefore with those surviving when Benjamin wrote : 
but it cannot be taken to prove that any particular surviving 
buildings were those devoted to purposes of study, still less that 
they were those in which the Library had been housed. I may 
further remark that Benjamin's account does not agree with that of 
an earlier writer, who says of the Serapeum that it is a ruin, and 
' nothing now remains of it except the columns or pillars, which are 
all standing, not one of them having fallen' (Arabic MS. of 1067 
A.D. at Paris, quoted by Dr. Botti, Colonne Theodosienne, p. i). 
Now given the fact that in the fourth century the central temple 
was completely demolished, and also the fact that in the eleventh 
century certain columns are all described as still standing in situ, it 
is quite clear that the columns referred to are those of the exterior 
colonnade of the acropolis and not those of the temple. 

^ Matter (op. cit., p. 324) tries to place Aphthonius' visit after 391, 
but cannot escape the difficulty in which the language of Aphthonius 
places him. For the Syrian writer says distinctly that the annexes 



4i6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

was present at the destruction, and wrote after it. 
The two accounts help each other out : yet it is very 
curious that while Aphthonius does not directly 
mention the temple, Rufinus is totally silent about 
the Library. It is nevertheless quite clear that 
Aphthonius associates the Library with the temple 
building as opposed to the other buildings upon the 
acropolis ^ ; and that at the date of his visit the 
Library was there, open as usual to readers. 

of the temple are built adjoining the colonnades on the inner sides, 
some used for the library and open for students, others devoted to 
the service of the ancient gods. Either therefore Aphthonius wrote 
before the destruction of the pagan shrines, or else the Christians, 
having wrecked the sanctuary of Serapis, spared and tolerated the 
other pagan sanctuaries. Matter is forced to choose the latter 
alternative, but it will not commend itself to many candid minds, 
nor is there any evidence to support it. Sozomen on the contrary 
says that the Serapeum remained in the occupation of the Christians 
from its capture to his own time. 

^ In describing the four colonnades which were built one from 
the middle point of each side of the temple at right angles to meet 
the exterior colonnade, he says axik'i] Se Kara jxio-ov TreptcrTvXo';. A 
comparison both with the context and with the language of Rufinus 
proves that this avX-^ must mean the temple itself : for Rufinus is 
unmistakable— 7;^ medw totius spatiiaedes eraf. The avkq therefore 
corresponds to the temple, which had a peristyle about it and on 
each side a colonnade at right angles. Then follows the passage 
already quoted (supra, p. 384, n. 2), TrapioKoBofirjvTat 8e a-rjKol t<ov 
cTTowv evSoOeVi k.t.X. ; which passage makes it quite clear that both 
the chambers set apart for the Library, and the chapels of the 
ancient gods, were built within the peristyle of the temple, or opened 
out of the surrounding cloister, as we might say. If there were any 
doubt on the point, it would be removed by the inscription found 
by Dr. Botti on the site: ^SapcxTrtSt koI Toll's a-vvvdoLS Oeol? vTrep 
(roiT7]pLa<s avTOKparopos Katorapos Tpaidvov *A8pLavov ^cfBacrrov, which 
expressly places the other deities in the same temple (L'Acropole 
d'Alexandrie, p. 22). Moreover, either these shrines were in the 
temple, or they were in the great exterior range of buildings. But 
of the latter Rufinus says that they comprised lecture-rooms, or 
abodes for the priests, or for the staff of custodians, or for the 



The Library of Alexandria 417 

But if the Library was part of the temple building, 
and if the temple building was utterly destroyed, 
how can it be argued that the Library did not 
perish ? The destruction of the temple was com- 
plete : it was thrown down to the foundations. 
Eunapius ^ says that ' they wrought havoc with the 
Serapeum and made war on its statues. . . . The 
foundations alone were not removed owing to the 
difficulty of moving such huge blocks of stone/ 
Theodoret, speaking of the same events, says, * The 
sanctuaries of the idols were uprooted from their 
foundations ^Z Socrates says that the Emperor s 
order was for the demolition of all the heathen 
temples in Alexandria, and that ' Theophilus threw 
down the temple of Serapis': and again, *The temples 
were overthrown, and the bronze statues melted down 
to make domestic vessels ^' The same writer records 

monks or ascetics or the like. I have no hesitation, therefore, in 
concluding that the books were actually stored in the temple 
building, and this agrees with all we know of such arrangements. 
There may be a question about the Museum ; but I have already 
shown that the Hadrianon and the Caesarion had their libraries, 
and I may clinch matters by giving the words of Orosius — hodie in 
templis extent, quae et nos vidimus, armaria lihrorum {Hist. vi. 

15. 31)- 

^ 1. c. supra, p. 381, n. i. 

^ Hist. Eccl. V. 2 2 Ik ^dOpo)v dveo-Trao-e to. twv ctScoXtoi/ Tefiivq : 
and he speaks of the temple of Serapis in a tone of regret : tSv 
•7ravTa)(ov y^s, KaOa <fia<TL TLve<s, fJL€yL(rr6<s re ovtos kol KaWtorros, 

' Hist. Eccl. V. 16 Xveo-^at rov'i iv 'AXe^avSpeta vaovs . • • di/a- 
KaOatpu fxev to Mt^paiov /carao-T/oe^et Se to ^apaTrelov. The Mithraeum 
was a temple in which the bloody rites of Persia were celebrated. 
There is nothing to prove that it was on the acropolis ; but the 
Emperor made a special grant of the site, and the building was 
turned into a church. So Sozomen speaking of a temple of 
Dionysus says, to Alovvo-ov Upbv cts iKKXyja-iav />ieT€0'/cci;a^€=' rebuilt 
in the form of a church': a different expression from avaKaOatp^u 
'—' purified and consecrated.' 

BUTLER E Q 



4i8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the discovery of stones with hieroglyphic inscriptions 
during the demolition of the temple of Serapis : and 
similar language is used by Sozomen ^, who describes 
the Christians as having uninterruptedly occupied 
the Serapeum from its capture by Theophilus to 
his own time. All these writers, be it noted, belong 
to the first half of the fourth century, and so are 
almost contemporary. It is to be regretted that 
they are not explicit about the fate of the Library, 
nor do they mention the destruction of other build- 
ings on the acropolis. Rufinus, however, throws 
some light on the subject, because he speaks of the 
exterior range of buildings round the edge of the 
plateau as practically uninjured, though void of its 
former pagan occupiers : but he makes it clear, that 
while this outer range remained, with its lecture- 
rooms and dwelling-rooms, not only the great temple 
of Serapis, but the colonnades about it, had been 
levelled to the ground 2. 

^ V. 15 rov vaov tovtou KaOaLpovfievov, See preceding note, and 
also supra, p. 385, n. 2. 

^ I have already given the passage from Rufinus (supra, p. 381, 
n. i). Dr. Botti not having the Latin text before him, gives La Faye's 
translation, which is correct ; and he justly shows that, as Rufinus 
was a witness of the destruction of the temple, his tenses, past and 
present, must be taken as distinguishing what survived and what did 
not survive at the time his record was written. Accordingly Rufinus 
proves, in Dr. Botti's opinion, that not only the statue and the temple 
were demolished, but also ' le portique carre de la cour centrale.' 
The words of Rufinus here are, 'Porticus quoque post haec omnem 
ambitum quadratis ordinibus distinctae intrinsecus circumibant.' 
The language is rather obscure perhaps, but I translate: 'Next (to 
this outer range) came colonnades, which used to run round the 
whole space of the interior, dividing it into quadrangles.' This 
agrees with the design as disclosed by Aphthonius; but if I am 
right in this interpretation, the destruction extended further than 
the peristyle round the temple, to which Dr. Botti seems to confine 
it {Colonne TModosienne, p. 35). 



The Library of Alexandria 419 

The argument now stands as follows : the Library 
is proved to have been stored in rooms which, like 
the shrines of the old Egyptian gods, formed part 
and parcel of the temple building. The temple 
building is proved to have been utterly demolished 
and destroyed. Therefore the Library suffered the 
same destruction ^ 

Of course it may be urged that the books, as 
opposed to the chambers which contained them, 
may possibly have been rescued. It is indeed 
alleged that the books had been removed bodily 
by George of Cappadocia some thirty years before 
the capture of the Serapeum by the Christians under 
Theophilus : and it is asserted also that now, upon 
the capture, they were packed off to Constantinople^. 
It may well be doubted whether the mob which 
hacked the statue of Serapis to pieces, burning the 
fragments on the spot ^, and which left not a stone 
standing of the grandest and most glorious temple 
in the world, was in any mood to care tenderly for 
those literary treasures, which after all were pagan, 
and were under the guardianship of the great idol. 
Strange as the silence is of contemporary writers, 

^ I may here remark that John Philoponus is made by Abii '1 
Faraj to speak of the books as stored * in the imperial treasuries.' 
This description is at once false and instructive. It is false, because 
the rooms in the Serapeum could by no stretch of language be 
called ' the imperial treasuries ' : and it is instructive, because the 
phrase seems to carry an echo of \ktfiscus Caesaris associated with 
the old Museum. 

^ See supra, p. 413 n. 

^ Theodoret, Hist. EccL v. 22, distinctly says that the statue, 
which was mainly of wood, was thus treated, only the head being 
dragged round the city. This agrees with Michael the Syrian, who 
says, * L'idole fut bris^e ; on la jeta au feu, et on promena sa tete 
par les rues' (ed. Chabot, tom. i. fasc. ii. p. 318). 

E e 2 ' 



420 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

It is far easier to believe that the books perished in 
the flames ^ which consumed the image of Serapis, 
than that they were plucked from the ruin of the 
temple and sent oversea. Orosius indeed is quoted 
as having seen the empty shelves or cases in the 
Serapeum. If the quotation were accurate, it would 
prove both that the books had disappeared by 416, 
when Orosius wrote, and that the Library building 
remained : but it is not accurate ; the words do not 
justify the construction put upon them ^. For Orosius 
makes no mention of the Serapeum. He is speaking 
of the destruction by fire of the original Museum 
Library, and he argues roughly as follows : — Granted 
that in certain temples empty bookshelves may be 

^ Dr. Botti seems rather to lean to the view that the Library of 
the Trajanum mentioned by Suidas (s. v. lo^StWos) as burned by 
Jovian may have been that at Alexandria, although the context 
seems to associate the event with Antioch {Colonne Theodosiennej 
pp. 139-41). 

2 Hist. vi. 15. 31. After describing the destruction of the 
original Library in Caesar's conflagration (see passage quoted supra, 
p. 410, n. i), Orosius continues: *Unde quamlibet hodieque in 
templis extent, quae et nos vidimus, armaria librorum, quibus 
direptis exinanita ea a nostris hominibus nostris temporibus 
memorent— quod quidem verum est — ; tamen honestius creditur 
alios libros fuisse quaesitos qui pristinas studiorum curas aemula- 
rentur, quam aliam ullam tunc fuisse bibliothecam, quae extra 
quadringenta milia librorum fuisse ac per hoc evasisse credatur/ 
The language is rather obscure: but its sense may be closely 
rendered as follows : ' On this point, however true it may be that 
at the present day there are empty bookshelves in some of the 
temples (I myself have seen them), and that these shelves were 
emptied and the books destroyed by our own people in our own 
time (which is the fact) : still the fairer opinion is that, subsequently 
to the conflagration, other collections had been formed to vie with 
the ancient love of literature, and not that there originally existed 
any second library, which was separate from the 400,000 volumes 
and owed its preservation to the fact of its separateness.* 



The Library of Alexandria 421 

seen to this day; and granted that they were emptied 
by acts of violence done in our own time ; these facts 
prove that Hbraries existed in recent years, but they 
do not prove that a hbrary survived which had formed 
a section of the old Museum Library and had escaped 
the fire through being housed in a separate building : 
they prove rather that other books were collected, in 
emulation of the old Library, at a date subsequent 
to the conflagration. 

Such is Orosius' argument : it is directed to show 
that no part of the great Ptolemaic Library was 
rescued from the burning ; and, as Matter and 
others contend, it contains no reference to the Sera- 
peum^ Precisely; but that fact has a double bearing. 
For if there is one inference which the language of 
Orosius warrants beyond doubt, it is this — that at the 
time when he wrote there was no great and ancient 
library in existence in Alexandria. Had such a library 

^ Matter's discussion of this question is singularly unconvinc- 
ing: see L'Ecok d' Alexandrie^ t. i. pp. 336 seq. He quotes John 
Philoponus, Ad Arist. Analyt. pr. i, fol. 2 b, as saying that Iv 
TraAatats /JtySAto^iyAcais there were reported to have been forty books 
of Analytics : and Matter from this expression infers the existence 
of new collections. But when he quotes Ammianus {Comment, in 
Arist. Categ.y ap. Ald.^ fol. 3 a) as saying that forty books of 
Analytics and two of Categories must have existed Iv rrj fieydXy 
pLpXioOrJKy, he rightly urges that this statement merely proves the 
disappearance of the Museum Library by the fifth century and not 
the non-existence of any other library. Matter is also justified in 
insisting that Orosius says nothing about the Serapeum; but he 
hardly appreciates the consequences of that argument. Prof. Bury, 
in his Appendix to Gibbon already cited, urges that Gibbon's 
statement of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library rests only 
on Orosius, I have shown that there is a good d§al of evidence 
independent of Orosius. When Prof. Bury adds, *It is highly 
improbable that Orosius was thinking either of the Alexandrian 
Library or the Serapeum ' in regard^ to the empty shelves, I agree 
with him. 



422 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

existed in the Serapeum in 416 a. d., it is simply 
inconceivable that Orosius, in following the train 
of thought which I have set out, should have passed 
it over in silence. Orosius therefore is really a wit- 
ness not to the destruction of the Serapeum Library 
in 391, but to its non-existence in 416. 

The case, however, against the existence of the 
Library in the seventh century, which is the point 
at issue, is not yet complete. Of course no one 
supposes that even in the great wars upon books — 
such as the war made by Diocletian upon Christian 
books and the war made by Theophilus upon pagan 
books — all the books in Alexandria perished. Even 
after the destruction of the great public libraries, 
there must have been many volumes in private 
collections, and many in the remoter monastic 
libraries. The very fact that Alexandrian learning 
was not extinguished proves the use of books. But 
if the great Serapeum Library had continued in 
existence into the seventh century, how comes it 
that not a single writer in the fifth or sixth century 
can be cited to establish the fact in clear and unmis- 
takable language? Take one particular instance. 
I have already related the visit of John Moschus 
and his friend Sophronius to Egypt not many years 
before the Arab conquest; and I have shown the 
keen intellectual interest of the two scholars and 
their fondness for anything in the shape of a book ^ : 
but though they were both fairly voluminous writers, 
and though they travelled and resided a great deal 
in Egypt, their pages will be searched in vain for 
any allusion to other than private libraries in the 
country. Two centuries of silence, ending in the 
silence of John Moschus and Sophronius, seem to 
^ Supra, pp. 96 seq. 



The Library of Alexandria 423 

render it impossible that any great public library 
can have existed when the Arabs entered Alex- 
andria. 

One or two other points remain to be noticed. 
Let it be granted for a moment that all the fore- 
going reasoning has not seriously shaken the theory 
of the survival of the Serapeum Library; and suppose 
also that the Library was intact when the Arabs cap- 
tured Alexandria ; I would still say that its destruc- 
tion by the Arabs is extremely improbable. For this 
reason : that the Arabs did not enter Alexandria 
for eleven months after its capture, and in the treaty 
of surrender it was expressly stipulated that during 
the interval, not only might the Romans them- 
selves depart, but that they might carry off all their 
movable possessions and valuables ^. During all this 
period the sea was open, and the passage to Constan- 
tinople and other ports was absolutely unhindered. 
The mere market value of the books in the Serapeum 
Library, if it existed, must have been enormous : 
their literary value must have been keenly appre- 
ciated by a large number of persons with intellectual 
interests : and these students would surely have fore- 
stalled the fabled zeal of John Philoponus by securing 
the removal of such priceless treasures while it was 
still time, instead of leaving them to the ignorant 
mercy of the desert warriors to whom the city was 
to be delivered. 

Finally, the silence that prevails among fifth and 
sixth century writers reigns also after the conquest. 
There are no Arab historians of Egypt in the seventh 
or eighth century ; and it might be said that later 
writers were anxious to suppress the story of the 

* See supra, p. 320, clause 4 in the Treaty of Alexandria, and 
John of Nikiou, p. 575. 



424 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

burning of the Library. But this cannot apply to 
the Coptic bishop, John of Nikiou, who was a man 
of learning, and who wrote before the end of the 
seventh century. The range and the detail of his 
work prove that he had access to plentiful sources 
of information fifty years after the conquest. Abti '1 
Faraj himself — the author of the charge against the 
Arabs — proves that Alexandria continued to be 
frequented by students about the year 680 a. d. : 
for he represents James of Edessa as going to Alex- 
andria to complete his education after receiving a 
thorough instruction in the Greek language and in 
the Scriptures at a Syrian convent ^ This evidence 
warrants the assertion that some private and monas- 
tic libraries continued after, as before, the conquest. 
But if there had been a great public library before 
the conquest, and if it had been burned by the Arabs 
at the conquest, is it possible that John of Nikiou — 
an almost contemporary writer, who deals minutely 
with the capture of Alexandria — should have con- 
signed to oblivion an event which not merely im- 
poverished his history of its best materials, but 
robbed the literary world of its great storehouse 
of treasure for all time ? 

It may not be amiss to briefly recapitulate the 
argument. The problem being to discover the truth 
or falsehood of the story which charges the Arabs with 
burning the Alexandrian Library, I have shown — 

(i) that the story makes its first appearance more 
than five hundred years after the event to which it 
relates ; 

(2) that on analysis the details of the story resolve 
into absurdities ; 

(3) that the principal actor in the story, viz. John 

^ Barhebraeus, Chron. Eccl. t. i. c. 290. 



The Library of Alexandria 425 

Philoponus, was dead long before the Saracens 
invaded Egypt ; 

(4) that of the two great public Libraries to which 
the story could refer, (a) the Museum Library 
perished in the conflagration caused by Julius 
Caesar, or, if not, then at a date not less than four 
hundred years anterior to the Arab conquest ; while 
(<5) the Serapeum Library either was removed prior 
to the year 391, or was then dispersed or destroyed, 
so that in any case it disappeared two and a half 
centuries before the conquest ; 

(5) that fifth, sixth, and early seventh century 
literature contains no mention of the existence of 
any such Library ; 

(6) that if, nevertheless, it had existed when Cyrus 
set his hand to the treaty surrendering Alexandria, 
yet the books would almost certainly have been 
removed — under the clause permitting the removal 
of valuables — during the eleven months' armistice 
which intervened between the signature of the con- 
vention and the actual entry of the Arabs into the 
city ; 

and (7) that if the Library had been removed, or 
if it had been destroyed, the almost contemporary 
historian and man of letters, John of Nikiou, could 
not have passed over its disappearance in total 
silence. 

The conclusion of the whole matter can be no 
longer doubtful. The suspicion of Renaudot and 
the scepticism of Gibbon are more than justified. 
One must pronounce that Abu *1 Faraj's story is 
a mere fable, totally destitute of historical foun- 
dation \ 

* My only concern in this matter has been to establish the truth, 
not to defend the Arabs. No defence is necessary : were it needful, 



426 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

it would not be difficult to find something in the nature of an 
apology. For the Arabs in later times certainly set great store by 
all the classical and other books which fell into their hands, and 
had them carefully preserved and in many cases translated. Indeed 
they set an example which modern conquerors m.ight well have 
followed. Thus Sedillot relates [Hist. G/n. des Arades, t. i. p. 185) 
that when the French captured the town of Constantine in North 
Africa they burned all the books and MSS. which they captured, 
' comme de vrais barbares.' The English on the capture of Magdala 
found a large library of Abyssinian books, which they carried off : 
but before long they abandoned the greater part at some wayside 
church, because it was too much trouble to transport them. The 
selection of books for keeping seems to have been made at random : 
but the value of the books saved is some measure of the loss to 
the world of learning of the books abandoned. The British Museum 
MS. of John of Nikiou was among the treasures rescued in this 
haphazard manner. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

CONQUEST OF PENTAPOLIS 

Expedition to the West. Small opposition. Surrender of Barca 
under treaty. Capture of Tripolis and of Sabrah by storm. Return 
of 'Amr to Alexandria, and to Babylon. Fortress built at Jizah, 
Expedition to Nubia forced to retreat. *Amr's description of 
Egypt, and his sermon. Story of the virgin and the Nile. 

Though the fall of Alexandria extinguished the 
Roman Empire in Egypt, 'Amr ibn al *Asi did not 
regard it as marking the accomplishment of his 
mission. The main of the Roman armies had left 
the country — under a compact never to return. 
Such resistance as still lingered clung to remote 
places in the Delta, relying on natural defences of 
river or lake, but powerless to reverse the broad 
result of the war : thus the cities of ManzMah, as we 
have seen, kept alive hostilities for several months 
after the occupation of Alexandria. But since the 
time when the Arab horsemen under Zubair had 
first saved the imperilled fortunes of * Amr, a steady 
stream of reinforcements had been poured into 
Egypt, not merely repairing the waste of war, but 
swelling the strength of the Arab army. Conse- 
quently 'Amr now had at his disposal a large body 
of troops, apart from those required to garrison the 
chief towns and to capture the last remaining strong- 
holds of the enemy. 

The spirit of conquest was as much in the genius 
of *Amr as the spirit of expansion was in the genius 
of Islam. As soon, therefore, as Egypt was secured, 
and before the fighting there was all over, the Arab 
chief decided upon an expedition to Pentapolis, the 



428 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

next province of the Roman Empire westward of 
Egypt. The establishment of settled government 
for the Nile valley must have been nearly completed 
during the eleven months of the armistice ; so that, 
when the Arabs entered Alexandria, they had to 
provide merely for the administration of the city. 
Had it been otherwise it would have been impos- 
sible for the expedition to follow so closely upon the 
occupation of the capital as it did follow ; for the 
date cannot be much later than the beginning of the 
year 643 ^. 

It has been shown in connexion with the revolt of 
Heraclius against Phocas that, in the seventh cen- 
tury, stations or towns were dotted along the whole 

^ Ibn al Athir (vol. iii. p. 1 9) says that the invasion of Barca was 
in A. H. 22, i.e. Nov. 30, 642 — Nov. 20, 643. The same writer 
(p. 38) gives correctly the date of Omar's death, and he must be 
preferred to Yakut and Ibn Khaldfin who give a. h. 2 1 for this 
invasion. I have elsewhere suggested that the discrepancy may be 
due to the fact that 'Amr must have started soon after the beginning 
of the Muslim year. There was of course a second expedition to 
Pentapolis in a. h. 25 ; but the two are clearly distinguished at 
least in Ibn al Athir. Severus, as might be expected, confuses 
them ; and, in speaking of an expedition which followed the restora- 
tion of Benjamin to the patriarchal throne, he fails to make it clear 
that he is not referring to the first, but to the second invasion of 
Pentapolis. Yet there is no manner of doubt on the subject : as 
the second invasion exactly fits with the known chronology, while 
if the first were understood, other events of well-ascertained date 
would be thrown into hopeless disorder. Moreover Eutychius here 
is of service : for he says, * *Amr took Tripolis in the west in a. h. 
22, in the twenty-second year of Heraclius and the tenth of Omar's 
caliphate.' The date of Heraclius must be ruled out, because 
Eutychius chooses always to give it wrongly. But a. h. 22 does 
coincide for about half the year with the tenth year of Omar, since 
Omar began to reign July 24, 634, and his tenth year would begin 
in the early summer of 643, while a. h. 22 ended in Noveniber, 643. 
Tripolis was probably captured in May or June of that year. 



Conquest of Pentapolis 429 

route between Alexandria and Cyrene, and that 
much of the way lay through fertile country \ The 
march, which was an easy one for Roman troops, 
was a mere promenade for Arab horsemen 2. Nor 
was much opposition encountered. There is no 
record of any fighting at all at Barca, which seems 
at once to have capitulated under treaty, agreeing 
to pay 13,000 dinars as yearly tribute ^ Two 
curious stipulations were made, (i) that the people 
of Barca might sell their children to raise the tribute- 
money, and (2) that the tribute should be delivered 
in Egypt, no tax-collector being allowed to enter the 
country. According to Yikiat, most of the people 
here became Muslims. From Barca *Amr swept 
on to Tripolis, which was better fortified and had 
a larger Roman garrison. The city shut its gates, 
and for some weeks withstood the blockade which 
the Arabs established ^ The sea was open, but no 
relief came by the sea ; and when the garrison was 
nearly worn out with fighting or hunger, the Arabs 

^ See ch. i. supra. 

^ Suyftti implies that only cavalry were taken : Husn al Muhd- 
darah, p. 86. 

^ Ibn al Athir, Yakilt, and Ibn Khaldiin all agree that *Amr 
' made peace ' on these terms, but there is no mention of fighting. 

* Yakfit gives three months, Ibn Khaldiin one month, as the 
duration of the siege. Yet Ibn Khaldiin, whose whole account is 
better written and truer-looking than that of Ydkut, speaks of the 
inhabitants as * worn out by the siege.' Ibn *Abd al Hakam dates 
the capture of Tripolis a. h. 23, according to Weil [Geschichte der 
Chalifen, vol. i. p. 124 n.), but this would make an impossibly long 
interval after the surrender of Barca. John of Nikiou speaks of 
the wealthy men of the province taking refuge with Abulianos, the 
Prefect, and his troops in a strongly fortified city, which he calls 
Dushera (p. 578). But apparently John means to say that the 
Arabs failed to capture Diishera : they certainly can have had little 
or no equipment for siege warfare. 



430 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

discovered that the city was undefended on the 
harbour side, and that an entrance was practicable. 
A few men managed to force a passage round be- 
tween the city wall and the sea, and rushed on the 
enemy. As their war-cry, ' Allahu Akbar,' rang 
through the streets and the flash of the scimitars 
was seen, a panic seized the defenders, who caught 
up what goods they could carry, ran to the ships, 
and hoisted sail. Meanwhile the gates were aban- 
doned, and 'Amr entered with the bulk of his army. 
Moving with characteristic swiftness, *Amr next 
surprised the city of Sabrah ^, dashing upon it early 
in the morning. The inhabitants were entirely off 
their guard, as they fancied that the Arabs were still 
occupied in beleaguering Tripolis, and the city fell 
at the first onset. It was taken by force of arms 
and plundered. This marked the end of the rapid 
campaign. *Amr returned to Barca, where he re- 
ceived the formal submission of the Berber tribe of 
Lawdtah 2, which occupied most of the country ; and 
thence he led his victorious forces back to Egypt ^ 

^ Mr. Alex. Graham in his Roman Africa (London, 1902) gives 
at the end of his work a list of correspondences between ancient 
and modern names. In this Sabrata (presumably the same as the 
Arab Sabrah) is represented as the modern Zurarah, and Barca as 
the modern Tolometa. On p. 156 will be found an account of 
Roman remains at Tripoli, and the whole book is full of illustrations 
of Roman architecture, which dates from an earlier period no doubt, 
but was not very materially altered before the Arab conquest. 

^ The Arab historians say that this tribe of Lawdtah came 
originally from Palestine in the time of Goliath. The tradition is 
worth recording, and it goes as far back as Ibn 'Abd al Hakam. 

* According to Weil, who is presumably quoting Ibn 'Abd al 
Hakam, *Amr wished to pursue his career of conquest further west- 
ward, but was recalled by Omar, who saw more danger than 
advantage in such a compaign. Moreover * the Mukaukas wrote to 
'Amr that the Romans would make an effort to recover Egypt.' 



Conquest of Pent apo Its 431 

with a long train of captives and with abundance of 
spoil. 

It is said that 'Amr wished to take up his abode 
in Alexandria, particularly as he found so many of 
the splendid palaces deserted. But Omar had 
already determined that Fustat was to be the future 
capital of Egypt, and he did not choose to have his 
Viceroy established in a great city resting on the 
sea and sundered from the Arabian desert by all the 
network of the Nile. It was probably in the sum- 
mer of 643 that *Amr returned to Babylon, where 
the two bridges over the Nile — joining the island of 
Raudah with Babylon on the eastern bank and with 
Jlzah on the western — as we have seen, had been 
reinstated \ But the western bank with the town 
of Memphis was exposed to sudden raids from the 
wild desert tribes beyond the Pyramids, and to meet 
this danger, as well as to plant the Arab power 
firmly astride the Nile, *Amr ordered a fortress to 
be built at Jlzah. The work was finished before 
November of that year 2. 

This latter statement is certainly erroneous. Al Mukaukas was 
dead, if Cyrus was meant : while if the title were given to Benjamin 
(as Ibn 'Abd al Hakam seems to give it), he was still hiding in 
Upper Egypt. 

^ These bridges were made of boats or barges, moored with their 
heads up stream, and joined by planks. They existed before the 
conquest, and it was part of the contract made on the surrender of 
Babylon that the Copts should keep in repair * the two bridges ' 
^j^ J%o. See n. 19 on p. 129 of Hamaker's Expugnatio 
Memphidis, 

^ Abu Salih, p. 173, says that the fortress was built in a. h. 22, 
which ended Nov. 20, 643. Yakiit says that the Arab colony 
established at Jizah consisted of Himyarites, Abyssinians, and 
members of the tribes of Hamdan, Rua'in, and Al *Azd ibn al Hajar 
(vol. ii. p. 177). As far as I know, this is the only mention of 
Abyssinians as forming part of the conquering army. Abu Salih 



432 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Peace now reigned throughout the whole of the 
Delta and the Nile valley as far as the southern 
border of Egypt at Aswan. But the Sudan now, as 
ever, was a thorn in the side of the government. 
Its untameable tribes, secure in their mountains and 
deserts, had no notion of changing their Christian 
faith to Islam, nor of abandoning their ancestral 
right of raiding the wealthy cities of Egypt. An 
expedition which *Amr sent against the Nubians not 
merely failed to vanquish them, but was forced to 
retreat ^, having suffered much loss from the excep- 
tional skill of the Nubian archers, whom the Arabs 
henceforth distinguished as the ' eye-wounders.' 
Desultory jfighting lasted for some years ; till in the 
reign of Othman a treaty of peace was made, under 
which the Nubians engaged to deliver an annual 
tribute of slaves to the ruler of Egypt, while the 
Arabs undertook to deliver convoys of provisions 
and a robe of honour. It was clearly a peace on 
equal terms : the time had not yet come for the 
conquest of the Sudan 2. 

mentions only the Hamddn : and I think Yakut must be mistaken, 
because Baladhuri speaks of the Abyssinians as enemies. * When 
the Muslims occupied Egypt, an army of Abyssinians marched 
from Al Biyama and attacked the Arabs, continuing to fight with 
them for seven years,' he says : and he adds the curious remark, 
'They made themselves invincible for the time by flooding the 
country' (ed. de Goeje, p. 223). Of course in both cases the term 
may be loosely used to denote either Sudanis of some sort or else 
men from Yaman in South Arabia. 

^ These are the very words of Ibn al Athir. The campaiga 
may be the same as that mentioned in the preceding note as 
recorded by Baladhuri, but Ibn al Athir says nothing about the 
country being flooded. According to Ya'kiibt the invasion of Nubia 
under 'Ukbah ibn Nafi' took place before the foundation of Jizah, 
but he agrees that the Arabs met with a stout resistance. 

^ The final subjection of Nubia was accomplished in 652. The 



Conquest of Pentapolis 433 

Meanwhile the country was settling down under 
the mild and just government of 'Amr ibn al *Asi ; for 
that was the character it assumed when the long 
struggle of the conquest was over. The description 
of Egypt, which he now wrote on the demand of the 
Caliph Omar, gives an interesting glimpse of 'Amr 
both as poet and as statesman. It was in rhyrhed 
prose, and ran as follows ^ : ' Know, O Commander 
of the Faithful, that Egypt is a dusty city and 
green tree. Its length is a month, and its breadth 
ten days. It is enclosed by a barren mountain 
range and yellow sands. The Nile traces a line 
through its midst : blessed are its early morning 
voyages and its travels at eventide ! It has its season 
for rising and for falling, according to the course of 
the sun and the moon. It causes milk to flow, and 
brings cattle in abundance. When the springs and 
fountains of the land are loosened, it rolls its swell- 
ing and sounding waters till the fields are flooded on 
both sides. Then there is no escaping from village 
to village save in little boats, and frail skiffs, and 
shallops light as fancy or the evening mist. After 
the river has risen to its full measure, it sinks back 
again to its former level. Moreover the people, who 
are devout in worship, and are our protected allies ^, 
have learnt to plough the earth well and truly and 
to hasten the seed-time, trusting that the Most High 
will give the increase and will grant the fruit of their 

treaty of peace is given by Makrizi, and may be found translated 
in Prof. Lane-Poole's Egypt in the Middle Ages, pp. 21-3. 

^ I have followed the version given by Abu '1 Mahasin. It 
differs somewhat from that given by Gibbon in his fifty-first chapter 
from Vatier's rendering of Murtadi. 

^ The use of this expression by 'Amr of course confirms the fact 
that relations of protection and alliance between the Arabs and the 
Egyptians were established by treaty. 

BUTLER Y I 



434 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

labour, though the labour is light. So the crop is 
grown, and streams of water bring on the harvest, 
as moisture from beneath gives nourishment. At 
one time Egypt is a white pearl ; then golden 
amber ; then a green emerald ; then an embroidery 
of many colours. 

* Blessed be God, because it has pleased Him to 
bestow benefits upon this land, to give it increase, 
and so to establish the inhabitants in their country, 
that no sound of complaint is heard from the people 
to their ruler ; that the land-tax is not demanded 
before its due season ; and that a third of the 
revenue is spent on bridges and sluice-gates. If the 
governors continue to act thus, the revenue will be 
doubled, and God will reconcile the different 
religions and the variety of worldly interests.' 

The same genial wisdom shines through the 
sermon which the conqueror of Egypt delivered at 
the mosque of 'Amr, as it is still called, on the 
Friday in Easter week of 644 ^. It is recorded from 
the lips of one of his hearers, who went to the 
mosque with his father. He saw the crowd driven 

* This date is the result of a series of inferences. Ibn 'Abd al 
Hakam, from whom the sermon comes, gives it as related by Zahya 
ibn Dahir al Ma'afiri, who says, 'I went with my father to the 
Friday prayers, at the end of winter, a few days after the Great 
Thursday of the Christians.' If the Great Thursday means Maundy 
Thursday, as I presume, this fixes the day. The year is less certain ; 
but 644 seems the only year about this time in which 'Amr was 
at Fustat and was in a position to exhort his hearers to a quiet 
enjoyment of the country at pasture-time. The sermon is given 
also by Suyfttt, who calls the narrator BahJr ibn Dajir al Maghari 
— a good illustration of copyist corruption. Mr. Corbett in his 
article on the mosque of 'Amr {Royal Asiat. Soc. Journal for Oct. 
1890, p. 768) thinks that Epiphany is meant: but the Egyptian 
winter cannot be described as over in the middle of January. 



Conquest of Pentapolts 435 

back with whips, as they pressed too closely ; heard 
the muezzin call to prayer ; and watched *Amr as he 
mounted the pulpit. 'Amr's strong build, his 
capacious head, dark eyes, and cheerful countenance 
made a deep impression on the young Muslim, who 
notes also that he wore a striped garment in the 
texture of which were threads of gold. 

'Amr briefly gave praise and glory to God, and 
prayed for the Prophet ^ He urged his hearers to 
give alms, and to render dutiful obedience to their 
parents. He recommended moderation and forbade 
excess. He warned the Muslims against those 
things which cause fatigue in place of repose, narrow 
means in place of abundance, and weakness in place 
of strength : and those things are mainly the enlarge- 
ment of the household, avarice in heaping up money, 
and vain and purposeless chatter. Idleness and 
frivolity are the chief sources of vice, and crush out 
the nobler desires of the soul. Then 'Amr changed 
his subject and said : * O ye congregation, the 
Twins are hanging in the sky and Sirius is still 
covered ; the heavens have begun their yearly 
course, the sky is clear and there is no plague ; the 
flood is diminished, the pasture is good ; milk 
abounds for kids and lambs, and the shepherd must 
watch well over his flock. Therefore go forth with 
the blessing of God to your cultivated land, and 
enjoy its benefits — milk and flocks and herds and 
game : feed your horses and fatten them, guard 
them and better them, for they are your defence 
against the enemy, and through them you gain booty 
and wealth. 

'And take good care of your neighbours the 

^ What follows is little more than a transcript of Abu '1 Maliasin's 
story of the sermon taken from Ibn 'Abd al Hakam. 

F f 2 



43^ The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Copts. Omar, the Commander of the Faithful, told 
tne that he heard the Apostle of God say : God will 
open Egypt to you after my death. So take good care 
of the Copts in that country ; for they are your kins- 
men and under yozcr protection. Cast down your 
eyes therefore, and keep your hands off them ^. 

' Know that you are an army of defence up to the 
Day of Resurrection, because of the many enemies 
who surround you, and the desire of their hearts 
towards you and your country, which is a storehouse 
of corn and money and wealth and blessings of 
every kind. Omar told me that he heard the 
Apostle of God say : When God opens Egypt to you, 
gather a large army there, and it will be the best 
army in the world. So Abu Bakr asked : Why, O 
Apostle of God ? And he said : Because they and 
their wives form an army of defence imtil the Day of 
Resurrection 2. 

' Therefore praise God, O ye congregation, because 
He has made you rulers of this country ; and enjoy 

^ Ibn 'Abd al Hakam in his FutHh Misr proves by Muslim 
tradition how strong was the claim of the Copts to good treatment, 
and how strong was the injunction laid by Mohammed upon his 
followers to accord it. The passage is extracted from Ibn 'Abd al 
Hakam by Abu Salih : see pp. 97-100, with Mr. Evetts' notes. 
It would be well if the Muslims had remembered more often in 
their history the dying command of their Prophet. 

^ The story as here given is not very clear. It usually takes 
another form, viz. that Mohammed on his death-bed said three 
times, ' Take charge of the men with curly hair ' ; then swooned 
away. When he recovered they asked his meaning, and he said, 
' The Copts of Egypt are our uncles and our brothers-in-law. They 
shall be your allies against your enemy and your helpers in your 
religion.' When asked, * How shall they be our helpers in 
religion ? - Mohammed answered, * They shall relieve you of the 
cares of this world, so that you shall be at leisure for religious 
worship.' 



Conquest of Pentapolis 437 

your green fields, so long as they remain pleasant to 
you. But when the weather grows oppressive, and 
the posts grow hot ; when flies multiply and the 
milk turns sour ; when the herbage withers, and the 
roses are gathered from the trees ; then come back 
to your Fustat with God's blessing. 

^ I have said my say, and may God preserve you.' 
The Muslims have a curious tradition that one 
of the first acts of *Amr's administration was to 
abolish the annual custom of sacrificing a virgin 
to ensure the rise of the Nile. The story is that 
the river, deprived of its immemorial tribute by 
'Amr's ordinance, refused to lift its flood, until a 
letter of the Caliph's was thrown in the stream 
and secured its obedience ^ This of course is mere 
legend : there is no more reason to believe in the 
toleration of human sacrifice in Christian Egypt 
than in the miraculous power of the Caliph's letter. 
Yet this legend, like most others, seems to have 
some foundation in history, inasmuch as among 
the savage tribes in the far south of the Sudan the 
custom did prevail of throwing into the Nile a virgin 
apparelled as a bride 2; and it is possible that a 

^ The story may be found in Ibn al Fakih {Bihl. Geog. Arab. 
part V. p. 65). It gives the date for the sacrifice as 12 Ba'iinah 
(6 June) : the refusal of the Nile continued till ' the day before the 
festival of the Cross,' i.e. till 13 September, when the Caliph's 
letter was flung into the river. The date shows the absurdity of the 
story. An EngHsh version occurs in H. S. Jarrett's History of the 
Caliphs in Bibliotheca Indica, vol. xviii. series iii. p. 130. 

^ That the custom lingered in Bornu down to modern times is 
clear from the travels of Harnemann (vol. i. p. 143) and Burck- 
hardt (Travels in Nubia, App. ii. p. 444), quoted by Hamaker in 
Expugnaiio Memphidis, p. 133. Hamaker also refers to Rich's 
diary in Quarterly Review, 1820, p. 232, and his whole note is well 
worth reading. 



433 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

similar custom was found in some barbarous region 
of Nubia which was conquered in the early days of 
Islam. It is possible also that in Egypt itself the 
practice of sacrificing a maiden to the Nile subsisted 
under the Pharaohs, as it is certain that a good deal 
of more innocent superstition of ancient origin was 
preserved in ceremonies attending the invocation 
of the river, which lasted down to the fourteenth 
century \ But it is quite false to charge the 
Christians with keeping up inhuman rites totally 
repugnant to their religion. 

The utterances of 'Amr already quoted indicate 
clearly enough his methods of government and the 
relations he sought to establish between victor and 
vanquished. Even more decisive evidence of the 
same spirit was shown in the order, which he now- 
issued, for the recall and reinstatement of the 
Patriarch Benjamin. It was a recognition of the 
fact that the political and the religious settlement of 
the country were bound up together. 

^ Hamaker, ib., p. 134, records in particular the use of certain 
relics of St. George for the purpose of raising the flood. The 
church of St. George to which they belonged was pulled down, and 
the relics were burned and the ashes scattered in the river, in a. h. 
755; or ^354 A.D. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

RESTORATION OF BENJAMIN 

State of the Coptic Church at Cyrus' death. Recovery of free- 
dom. 'Amr's invitation to Benjamin. Return of the Patriarch 
from exile. His interview with 'Amr. Revival of the Church. 
•Repair of desert monasteries. Exultation of the Copts. Their 
verdict on the expulsion of the Romans. 

By the death of the Roman Patriarch, Cyrus, and 
by the departure of the Roman armies on which his 
power had rested, a tremendous change had been 
wrought in the position of religious parties. The 
long ordeal of the Great Persecution was over. 
Though a new Melkite Patriarch had been appointed 
in Alexandria, he had little or no jurisdiction beyond 
the city walls : his power was gone, and his following 
greatly minished. But the Coptic Patriarch was 
still in hiding — an exile and a wanderer in Upper 
Egypt. His Church lay weakened and almost life- 
less, it seemed, from the blows rained upon it during 
the space of ten years by the relentless hand of 
Cyrus. Now, however, Christianity had ceased to 
be the state religion ; over both parties was thrown 
the shield of Islam, and between them its sword. 
This state of things allowed free play to religious 
sentiment. The Muslims had no interest in the truth 
or falsehood of the pronouncement of Chalcedon ; 
while the Copts were no longer under the dominion 
of a terror which forced them to renounce or to 
conceal their true belief. In the novel atmosphere 
of religious freedom the Coptic Church revived, and 
soon proved its claim to be considered the Church 



440 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

of the nation. *Amr s admission of this claim was 
sealed by his decree for the recall of Benjamin. 

The decree is said to have been prompted by 
information given to 'Amr by one Sanutius (or 
Shaniidah), who, though a Copt by creed, had held 
the position of dux or general in the Roman army '. 
But even Sanutius was ignorant of Benjamin s hiding- 
place 2, so that the decree had to be published in 
general terms. It ran as follows : * In whatsoever 
place Benjamin, the Patriarch of the Egyptian 
Christians, is living, to that place we grant protec- 
tion and security, and peace from God. Wherefore 
let the Patriarch come hither in security and tran- 
quillity, to administer the affairs of his Church and to 
govern his nation ^' It is not improbable that the 
action of Sanutius coincided with a general act of 
submission to Muslim authority made by the monks 
of Wadi 'n Natrtin. For Makrizi quotes Christian 
historians as relating that 70,000 monks from these 
monasteries went to meet *Amr ibn al 'Asi, each 
carrying a staff, and that when they declared their 
allegiance, he gave them a letter — doubtless a 
' writing of security,' and perhaps the very decree 
in question ^ As usual in Arab documents, cyphers 

^ Severus, Brit. Mus. MS., p. 106, 1. 10. Most of the facts here 
given come from the same source. 

^ This is one more proof, if proof were wanted, of the absurdity 
of making Benjamin play the part of Al Mukaukas at the con- 
quest. 

^ Abii Salih says that in the decree it was written: 'Let the 
Shaikh and Patriarch come forth in confidence with regard to his 
own person and to all the Copts who are in the land of Egypt or 
elsewhere : for they shall be safe from all violence and treachery,' 
and so on (p. 231). This is much the same in substance, though 
not so precise as the earlier Severus. 

* Makrtzi speaks of this letter as still existing at the Wadi 'n 



Restoration of Benjamin 441 

have grown upon the original number and swollen 
it to absurdity ; but that a deputation of 70, 
or even 700, monks waited upon the conqueror 
and was very well received may be regarded as 
historical. 

The bill of immunity was not long in reaching 
Benjamin, who now came forth from his retreat, and 
went in triumph to Alexandria. Great were the 
rejoicings of the people upon his return. It was 
now full thirteen years since he had abandoned his 
seat on the arrival of Cyrus, and had stolen away 
by the western desert. Ten years of this period 
corresponded to the ten years' persecution, and 
three years had been spent under the rule of the 
Muslims ^ During the whole of this time Benjamin 

Natrfin. He speaks also of another letter from 'Amr ' about the 
treasurership of the northern districts' as preserved at Dair Macarius: 
see Abft Salih, App., p. 320. Severus says nothing about the 
deputation, but writes that it was ' Sanutius, the believing duke, 
who had secured the return of the Patriarch, and obtained his 
safe-conduct from the Muslim commander.' The existence of the 
letter at Dair Macarius is also mentioned in Amdlineau's Histoire 
des Monasteres de la Basse JEgypte, p. xxxii. 

* There is a general agreement upon Benjamin's period of exile 
and its division. Severus says that he came back 'after an absence 
of thirteen years, of which ten were in the reign of Heraclius and 
three under the Muslims,' though he adds erroneously * before they 
conquered Alexandria.' John of Nikiou (c. cxxi. p. 584) says that 
he came back * thirteen years after he had taken flight to escape 
from the hands of the Romans,' although the rubric of the chapter 
makes the period of exile fourteen years, viz. ten under the Roman 
Emperors and four under Muslim rule. Makin gives thirteen years. 
I think there can be little doubt that the return of Benjamin fell 
towards the autumn of 644, i.e. the end of a.h. 24. Makin 
absurdly puts it in a.h. 20, while Severus with equal error connects 
it with *Amr's expedition to Pentapolis. One might produce a sort 
of agreement between Severus and John of Nikiou by taking the 
period of exile as fourteen years, which would date Benjamin's 



442 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

had been moving about among his people in secret, 
or lurking in desert monasteries; and it is worth 
remarking that neither the decisive conquest of 
Egypt by the Muslims nor the expulsion of the 
Roman armies furnished the exiled Patriarch with 
any reason for emerging from concealment. No fact 
could more clearly show how history has maligned 
the Copts in charging them with aiding the Arabs 
or hailing their country's enemies as deliverers. If 
the Copts had welcomed the Arabs, it could only 
have been by command or consent of their Patriarch : 
and if Benjamin had sanctioned any such alliance, 
he would not have waited for three years after the 
complete victory of the Arabs, and then have been 
lured from his retreat only by an uncovenanted 
promise of protection. Such an argument, if it 
stood alone, would be strong, if not conclusive : it 
is, however, but a link added to a chain of evidence 
which has become wellnigh irresistible. 

When Sanutius reported Benjamin's arrival in Alex- 
andria, 'Amr commanded the Patriarch's presence, 
giving orders at the same time that he should be re- 
ceived with all due honour and ceremony. Benjamin's 
handsome and dignified bearing and his grave elo- 
quence are represented as having made a deep 
impression on 'Amr, who remarked to his companions, 
'In all the countries I have conquered up to this 
day, I have never seen a man of God like this.' 
Of the ' noble oration,' which Benjamin is said to 
have delivered, 'Amr can have understood nothing; 

return a. h. 25: which was the date of the second expedition to 
Pentapolis; But this is to do violence to Severus' story, which 
seems to refer, however wrongly, to the first expedition ; and the 
fact is, that it is not worth while trying to reconcile all of these 
desperate discrepancies. 



Restoration of Benjamin 443 

but the practical suggestions of the Patriarch were 
well entertained, and he was given full authority to 
bear rule over his people and to administer the 
affairs of the Church. 

The restitution of Benjamin saved the Coptic 
Church from a perilous crisis, if not from destruc- 
tion. Never was the guidance of a strong character 
more needed. Under the persecution of Cyrus, as 
we have seen, thousands had been forced out of 
their allegiance, and had professed adherence to 
Chalcedon. Of course conversions wrought by 
threat or violence could not at first be real. But 
the process had been working for ten years ; habit 
had been growing; and the result could not be 
undone in a moment. Even more formidable, how- 
ever, was the defection of the Copts to Islam. Nor 
would it be right to attribute this defection solely to 
motives of worldly advantage. The offer of brother- 
hood with the conquerors and of freedom from 
tribute was potent enough to sweep down the tide 
all those whose religion was not strongly anchored ; 
but it must be sorrowfully granted also that many 
men of thoughtful mind may have sickened of a 
Christianity which so belied its Founder — a Christi- 
anity out of which all love and all hope had vanished 
in the war of sects — and hence may have sought 
refuge and repose in the calm simplicity of Islam. 

There was little or no prospect of bringing back 
to the fold those who had renounced the Christian 
faith altogether ; but it was otherwise with regard to 
many of those who had been driven by force or fear 
into theMelkite communion. The news of Benjamin's 
reappearance and return to the throne of Alexandria 
roused the greatest enthusiasm throughout Egypt. 
Most of the common people returned with joy to 



444 T^^^ Arab Conquest of Egypt 

their old pastor, 'and received the crown of con- 
fession \' The apostate bishops, who had joined 
the Church of the Empire, were also invited to 
resume their old allegiance. Some of them were 
received back with bitter tears of penitence ; but 
one bishop in particular is mentioned as refusing to 
return for very shame and for fear of being known 
as an apostate. His case was probably typical of 
many. Still the cause of the Coptic Church pro- 
gressed. While at first Benjamin ' turned all his 
thoughts by day and by night to bringing back the 
scattered members of his flock that had gone astray 
in the days of Heraclius,' later, as he succeeded in 
reuniting and reorganizing the body of his people, 
he gave his mind to rebuilding the ruined monas- 
teries, particularly those of the Wadi 'n Natrian, 
which had never recovered from the devastation 
wrought early in the seventh century. 

The money was found and the work was done. 
Severus gives a long and interesting account of 
events in this connexion. He shows how a depu- 
tation of monks came to Alexandria and entered 
the * Porch of the Angels 2/ as Benjamin was cele- 
brating on Christmas Day; how they begged him to 
come and consecrate the newly built church of St. 
Macarius in the desert ; how Benjamin granted their 
request, and travelling by Al Muna and Mount Bar- 
nuj arrived at the monastery of Baramus, whence 
he went to visit other monasteries. So on the 2nd 
January he came to the Dair Macarius, whence he 

^ Severus, 1. c, p. 107. 

^ The term is 'Stoa Angelon/ a mere transcription of the 
Greek. It clearly refers to the church called the Angelion, 
and would seem to prove that Angelion is more correct than 
Euangelion. 



Restoration of Benjamin 445 

was welcomed by the * great teacher* Basil, bishop 
of Nikiou, and a procession with palm-branches and 
censers. On the following day, 8th Tubah, the 
church was solemnly consecrated — with attendant 
miracles which need not here be recorded. One 
may, however, notice the words of Basil, who ' gave 
thanks to the Lord who had made the Patriarch 
worthy to see that glorious desert once more, and 
those holy fathers and brethren, and the procla- 
mation of the orthodox faith ; who had saved him 
from the heretics, and had delivered his soul from 
the great and cruel dragon which drove him away, 
and had granted him to behold his children once 
more around him ^! 

This is not the language of people suffering under 
oppression, but the language of people rejoicing in 
deliverance. Its tenour is fully confirmed by other 
passages of the same writer. ' I was in my city of 
Alexandria, and found a time of peace and safety 
after the troubles and persecutions caused by the 
heretics ^' are the words put into the mouth of Ben- 
jamin ; and his people are described as ' rejoicing 
like young calves when their bonds are loosened, 
and they are set free to suck their mother's milk.' 
John of Nikiou wrote fifty years after the conquest, 
and he is unsparing in his denunciation of the Muslim 
religion and the renegades who adopted it ; but of 
'Amr he remarks that 'while he exacted the taxes 
which had been determined upon, he took none of 
the property of the churches, and committed no 
act of spoliation or plunder ; nay, he preserved the 
churches to the end of his days ^! The relief, 

^ Severus, 1. c, p. iii, 11. 15-20. 

^ Id., p. no, 1. 5, and p. 108, 1. 18. 

^ p. 584. Vansleb alleges that he saw on the walls of Al 



446 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

therefore, of the Copts was very great. They had 
passed out of the long reign of terror, under which 
the folly of the Byzantine government had placed 
them, into a state of peace and security. Before 
they had been under a double bondage, civil and 
religious ; now their civil bondage was lightened 
and their religious bondage removed. True, their 
new rulers brought a strange and unchristian creed 
into the land, but even in this result they could read 
the divine judgement. For all agreed in saying, 
* This expulsion of the Romans and victory of the 
Muslims is due to the wickedness of the Emperor 
Heraclius and his persecution of the orthodox by 
means of the Patriarch Cyrus ; this was the cause 
of the ruin of the Romans and the subjugation of 
Egypt by the Muslims ^l Such was the popular 
verdict. The verdict of history will not take quite 
so sectarian a colour; but it will most surely confirm 
the reasoning which links together the misgovern- 
ment and the downfall of the Roman Empire. 

Mu'allakah in Kasr ash Shama* or Babylon a contract given by 
*Amr ibn al *Asi in his own hand for the protection of the church : 
it cursed all Muslims who should wish to deprive the Copts of it. 
He alleges that the Copts ransomed the church from 'Amr {Nouvelle 
Relation d'un Voyage /ait en ^gypte, p. 237). 
1 Id., ib. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
MUSLIM GOVERNMENT 

Equality of Christians before the law. Status of a protected 
people. Religious conditions. Political settlement. Roman 
officials retained. Land-tax and poll-tax : nature and amount. 
*Amr's just government and the Caliph's displeasure : their corre- 
spondence. Omar's avarice imitated by Othman. Story of Peter 
the Copt. Exemption of converts from the poll-tax and its 
consequences. Decline of state revenue. Pressure on the 
Christians. 

After all that the Copts had suffered at the 
hands of the Romans and the Patriarch Cyrus, it 
would not have been unnatural if they had desired 
to retaliate upon the Melkites. But any such design, 
if they cherished it, was sternly discountenanced by 
' Amr, whose government was wisely tolerant but 
perfectly impartial between the two forms of religion. 
Many facts might be cited in proof of this conten- 
tion : for example, the admission of Severus that 
a Melkite bishop remained a Melkite to his death ; 
his evidence that Benjamin worked on the perverts 
only by persuasion and remonstrance ; the continued 
mention of Melkite churches in later history ^ ; and 
the fact that the Melkites are spoken of in consider- 
able numbers fifty years after the conquest ^. So 

^ One such church on the top of the tower in Kasr ash Shama' 
has remained to this day in the very centre and stronghold of the 
Copts. 

2 The contemporary document Vie du Patriarche Isaac (tr. 
Amdlineau, p. 52) records that the Patriarch 'convertit un grand 
nombre de leur herdsie; il les amena a la foi orthodoxe: a quel- 
ques-uns il donna le bapteme, il re9ut les autres en les faisant 
anath^matiser eux-memes leurs h^r^sies,' &c. The heresy must 



448 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

that the two forms of Christianity must be imagined 
as subsisting side by side under the equal protection 
of the conquerors. 

Nor does this protection seem at that early date to 
have been trammelled with conditions which the law 
of Islam carried in its later developments. The status 
of a protected people was created by the treaty of 
peace, by which the Christians engaged to pay 
tribute in return for security at home and protection 
against foreign enemies. But as early as the tenth 
century the law declares that the obligation to pay 
tribute is governed by two classes of conditions — 
the first absolutely binding In all cases, the second 
depending in each case on the terms of the treaty. 
The binding conditions are these : (i) the Kuran 
is not to be reviled, nor copies of it burned ; (2) the 
Prophet must not be called a liar nor spoken of 
contemptuously ; (3) the religion of Islam is not to 
be condemned, nor must any attempt be made to 
refute it; (4) no Christian may marry a Muslim 
woman ; (5) no attempt may be made to seduce a 
Muslim from his religion, nor to injure him in purse 
or person ; (6) the enemies of Islam must not be 
assisted, nor the rich men among them entertained. 
The contingent conditions are as follows : (i) sub- 
jects must wear a distinctive garment with a girdle 
fastened round the waist ; (2) their houses must not 
be built higher than those of the Muslims ; (3) the 
sound of their bells ^ must not be forced on the ears 
of Muslims, nor their reading or chanting, nor their 
opinions on their peculiar tenets, whether Jewish or 

be mainly if not exclusively that of the Byzantine Church — the 
following of Chalcedon. 

^ The nakiis is more strictly a wooden gong than a bell. See 
supra, p. 343, n. 4. 



Muslim Government 449 

Christian; (4) crosses must not be displayed nor 
wine drunk In public, nor must swine be seen; (5) 
the dead are to be mourned in private and to be 
buried in private ; (6) subjects must ride only 
common horses or mules, not thoroughbreds \ 
There is nothing very unreasonable in any of these 
conditions, but it may be doubted whether they 
were attached to the payment of tribute so early as 
the conquest of Egypt. Many regulations, which 
grew out of usage into law, came in the days of law 
to be regarded as part of the original constitution of 
Islam. For example, MaVardi says, * It is not lawful 
for subject people to build a new church or syna- 
gogue in the territory of Islam, and any such 
building must be demolished ; but they may restore 
old churches or synagogues which have fallen into 
ruin.* But this distinction cannot be traced in the 
beginnings of Muslim rule in Egypt, because not 
only is Benjamin described as receiving a large sum 
of money from the duke Sanutius for the purpose 
of building a church to St. Mark in Alexandria ^, 
but the Patriarch John of Samanud did actually 
build a church with the same dedication ^, and under 
his successor, Isaac, the ruler of Egypt *Abd al 

^ These details are from MaVardi, who wrote in the first half of 
the eleventh century; died a. h. 450 = 1058 a.d. His work, Kitdb 
al Ahkd?n as Sultdniah, is the chief authority for early taxation, 
and is freely used in the present chapter. The long passage 
about the taxes begins on p. 245 for the tribute, and 253 for the 
land-tax. 

^ Severus, 1. c, p. 108, 1. 10. It is not quite clear whether 
Benjamin succeeded in raising enough money. The text does not 
support the idea that there was any question of rebuilding the 
original church of St. Mark. 

^ Vie du Patriarche Copte Isaac (ed. Am^lineau), p. 44. John's 
date was 680-9 a. d. : see Appendix F. 

BUTLER G 2[" 



450 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

'Aziz himself is represented as giving orders for the 
erection of a church at his newly settled town of 
Hulwan^. It would seem, therefore, that in matters 
ecclesiastical the Copts were granted every reason- 
able freedom. 

It is less easy to define the political settlement of 
the country. Broadly speaking, however, the civil 
administration was maintained unaltered. The 
Arabs were good fighters, but they had received no 
tradition and no training in the arts of government, 
nor did they possess any system which they could 
substitute for or graft upon the ancient and highly 
organized civil service of Egypt. But they had 
a quick and receptive intelligence, and were per- 
fectly capable of taking over and directing machinery 
which they found in working order. It has been 
shown above that some of the highest Roman 
officials not merely retained their posts, but adopted 
the religion of Islam, and probably a number of 
Roman people followed their example. On the 
other hand, a great number of vacancies must have 
been created by the departure of those Romans who 
declined to remain as Muslim subjects. These 
places were filled with Coptic Christians, and in no 
long time practically the whole business of the 
state was managed by Christians. This was not 
merely a result logically flowing from the conquest 
of a highly civilized by an uncivilized people, but 
it was prudently foreseen and expressly sanctioned 
by Mohammed himself. In this way, unfettered by 
worldly cares, the Muslims could better devote 
themselves to religion. It is, however, curious to 
find with what vitality the old Roman titles persisted 

^ Vie du Patriarche Copte Isaac ^ p. 78. The date would doubtless 
be 693. 



Muslim Government 451 

under Arab rule : for quite at the end of the seventh 
century the Copts continued to speak of a registrar 
or secretary as chartularms, of his superior as 
eparchos of the land of Egypt or archon, of the 
governor's residence as the praetormm, while the 
governor of Alexandria is actually called the ate- 
gustal^ : moreover, the term dtix is found in several 
eighth-century documents 2, mostly legal, and is used 
by the tenth-century writer Severus ^. 

But while the Roman system of registration and 
of collection was continued, it seems probable that 
the taxation fixed under treaty by the Arabs was at 
once somewhat less vexatious and less burdensome 
than the Roman. It is hard to get at the truth in 
such matters. One is dependent upon Arab writers, 
whose proneness to differ on points of history reaches 
its climax on questions of statistics. Thus Ibn *Abd 
al Hakam* alleges that when *Amr was firmly estab- 
lished, he made the Copts pay a similar tribute to 
that exacted by the Romans, but it was to fluctuate 
in proportion to their wealth and prosperity. This, 
I think, can only mean that he continued the Roman 
system of land-tax : for the poll-tax imposed by 
the Arabs was a fixed payment, while undoubtedly 
the land-tax varied in accordance with the rise of the 
Nile and the general conditions of agriculture. Ibn 
'Abd al Hakam goes on to say that it was the duty 
of the village headmen to meet and examine into 
the state of agriculture, and to distribute the burden 



^ Vie du Patriarche Copte Isaac ^ pp. 5, 7, 73. 

2 See Mr. W. E. Crum's Coptic Ostraka, no. 356. 

^ Mr. Milne shows how the framework of the Roman system of 
local government is preserved under Muslim arrangements even to 
this day; see his Egypt under Roman Rule, p. 216. 

* Quoted by Suyuti, p. 87. 

Gg 2 



452 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

of taxation accordingly. They were in fact a sort 
of local commissioners for the assessment of the 
land-tax. Any surplus above the prescribed amount 
was to be expended on local improvements, and 
a portion of land in every township was set aside to 
provide a fund for the maintenance of public build- 
ings, such as churches and baths. Any hospitality 
which the Muslims claimed of right from the Copts 
was to be taken into account, as well as the stated 
expenses for the entertainment of the governor 
upon his visit. 

• Such no doubt is a fair description of the inci- 
dence of the land-tax. But it is not clear whether 
this land-tax was specially imposed by treaty at the 
conquest, or was merely continued and regarded as 
the ordinary incident of land tenure ; nor is it 
always clear whether Arab writers in speaking of 
the revenue of Egypt refer to the total of taxation, 
or to the amount of the poll-tax, or tribute, alone. 
On the whole it would seem that they are dealing 
with the tribute. For on the one hand we are told 
that the population paying the capitation-tax of two 
dinars under the capitulation was 6,000,000 ; and 
on the other the revenue raised by 'Amr after the 
settlement is given as 12,000,000 dinars^ This 

* Suyiiti, 1. c, quotes 'Abdallah ibn Salih for these figures, and 
Abu Salih (p. 82) makes the very interesting statement that in 
A. H. 20 *Amr raised 1,000,000 dinars, while in a. h. 22 he raised 
1 2,000,000. In other words, in the year coincident with the capture 
of Babylon the poll-tax amounted to one million, which increased 
to twelve on the completion of the conquest. This sounds extremely 
probable. The same figure of 12,000,000 is given by Ibn Haukal 
on the authority of KkA Hazim al Kadi {Bihl. Geog, Arab, part ii. 
p. 87), who expressly states that the amount in question repre- 
sented the poll-tax alone. When Baladhurt states that the revenue 
raised by *Amr in Egypt was 2,000,000 (p. 216), one must regard 



Muslim Government 453 

sum is contrasted by Muslim historians with the 
20,000,000 said to have been levied by Al Mukau- 
kas^ If these figures could be taken as accurate, 
and as calculated upon the same basis, so as to 
furnish a fair comparison, they would of course 
prove that Arab rule brought to the Egyptians 
a great relief of taxation. But while the Arab 
figures denote the revenue raised by the poll-tax 
alone, it is hardly likely that the Roman figures 
refer to that one heading, although a poll-tax was 
one among the many items in the Roman schedule 
of taxation 2. Still there can be no doubt either 
that the Roman taxes were excessive in amount 
and unjust in their incidence, owing to the exemp- 
tion of privileged persons or communities ^ or that 
Heraclius was very hard pressed for money in the 
years preceding the Arab conquest : and there is 
no reason for discrediting the plain statement of 

the discrepancy as due to a copyist's blunder, which blunder is 
repeated in the figure 4,000,000 given instead of 14,000,000 as 
the revenue raised by 'Abdallah ibn Sa*d. Ya'kiibt says (id., part vii. 
p. 339) that 'Amr raised 14,000,000 in his first year and 10,000,000 
in the next. Here the difference is not easily explained; but 
12,000,000 seems settled by a concurrence of testimony, in spite of 
the fact that Makrizi, Khitat, i. p. 76, makes the population on which 
the tribute was levied 8,000,000. 

^ Abfi Salih is not very consistent. He seems to say (p. 81) 
that the Romans levied 20,000,000, and at the same time that the 
tribute which Heraclius required of Cyrus was 18,000,000. He 
may mean that the balance was retained by Cyrus. 

2 See Mr. Milne's Egypt under Roman Rule^ pp. 12 1-2. The 
whole of this chapter is worth reading, for it shows at once how 
arbitrary and complex the taxation was, and how closely in many 
details the Arab system followed the Roman: see, for example, 
pp. 119 and 125. 

^ Mr. Milne, 1. c, quotes Josephus as showing that the Alexandrians 
were exempt from the poll-tax; but how long that exemption 
continued is not stated. 



454 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the Muslim historians that upon the conquest the 
burden of taxation was lightened. On the other 
hand, exemptions were abolished. Some obscurity 
hangs over the position in Alexandria. It is certain 
that the people sorely fretted under the new system. 
This result might be due to the loss of a privileged 
immunity from poll-tax, if such immunity existed ; 
or it might be due to the fact that the city suffered 
out of all proportion both by the interruption and 
the loss of its lucrative commerce during the long 
war, and by the departure of many wealthy mer- 
chants and burghers upon the capitulation. But 
the capitulation itself is harder to understand, if 
under it the city had to sacrifice an ancient immu- 
nity from direct tribute. On the whole it seems 
more probable that Alexandria had been robbed of 
its privilege at some time before the conquest. 

The tribute, which the Arabs call jiziah, was 
fixed, as has been shown, at two dinars a head, and 
was not levied on old men or children, or women or 
slaves, or madmen or beggars. But although every 
man was liable for his share of tribute, so that the 
total amount of the poll-tax depended on the count 
of polls, it seems that the incidence of the tax 
varied, and consequently shares were not equal. 
The two gold pieces would be nothing to a rich 
man, but a heavy burden to the felldh. Hence the 
governor seems to have had the right to divide the 
tributaries into three classes — the poor, the middle- 
class, and the wealthy — and to assign to each a 
different proportion of the tribute ^ This arrange- 

^ Makrizi quotes Yazid ibn Aslam for the statement that Omar 
wrote to the military commanders, ordering the tribute to be so 
apportioned that the rich man's poll-tax should be four dinars, the 
poor man's forty dirhems. This seems too sharp a division. On 



Muslim Government 455 

ment, however just in theory, was obviously liable 
to abuse ; and it did in fact lead to arbitrary increase 
of taxation In defiance of the treaty. Nothing could 
be more equitable in the abstract than that the tax 
on each poll should vary with a man's means of 
payment, while the total remained unchanged; or 
that, while the total of land-tax varied with the 
season, the charge on any particular holding should 
vary with the productiveness of the soil : but it was 
not in human nature that such a system should 
continue to be honestly administered. It demanded 
ideal justice, but opened the door to every form of 
avarice and corruption : and it is no wonder that it 
broke down in practice. 

In this connexion it is interesting to notice Ibn 
*Abd al Hakam's story that *Amr, upon the request 
of the Caliph Omar, asked the Patriarch Benjamin^ 



the other hand, Ma'wardt says, * There is a dispute among lawyers 
as to the amount of the jiziah. According to Ab^ Hanifah there 
are three different amounts: (i) from the rich are due forty-eight 
dirhems; (2) from the middle-class twenty-four ; (3) from the poor 
twelve. These sums he gives as the maximum and the minimum, 
and he forbids governors to exercise their own discretion as to the 
amount.' It is impossible to read MaVardt without being struck 
by admiration for the extraordinary sense of justice and fairness 
which animates the theory and system of taxation he is describing. 
I give one example : ' Even when a protected people breaks its 
treaty by refusing payment of tribute, it is not lawful to kill or to 
rob them or to take their children, so long as they abstain from 
violence. Such rebels, however, must be given a safe-conduct and 
quit the territory of Islam ; and if they refuse to depart submissively, 
they must be ejected by force.' Nothing could better show how 
permanent was the idea of a contract subsisting between protectors 
and protected. 

^ Ibn 'Abd al Hakam says it was Al Mukaukas who was con- 
sulted : but he clearly identifies the Mukaukas with Benjamin in 
many passages. Of course *Amr might have asked the same 
questions of Cyrus: but Ibn'Abd al Hakam represents the Mukaukas 



456 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

what was the best way of keeping the country in 
order and raising the revenue. The conditions laid 
down by the Patriarch were these : (1) that the 
taxes should be collected at the right time, viz. the 
end of the agricultural season ; (2) that no taxes 
should be demanded after the vintage ; (3) that the 
canals should be dug out yearly ; {4) that the dykes 
and sluice-gates should be kept in repair; and 
(5) that no unjust or tyrannical official should be 
appointed. This fifth condition was the hardest of 
all to secure; for the very nature of the appoint- 
ment tended to develop just those qualities which 
would render it fatal. 

That the early government of *Amr was animated 
by a spirit of justice and even sympathy for the 
subject population, can hardly be questioned. He 
received, however, little encouragement from the 
Caliph. *Amr had filled the Caliph^s granaries with 
corn from Egypt, had poured gold into his coffers, 
and had extended his dominion : in return he re- 
ceived little but abuse and ingratitude from Omar. 
The relations of the two men at this time are shown 
in a vivid light by some correspondence which has 
been preserved, and which must be regarded as 
quite authentic^. * I have been thinking,* writes 

as alive at the time of Manuel's rebellion. Moreover the incident 
of the consultation seems the same as that quoted above from 
Severus, although Severus makes Benjamin's advice quite general. 
Makrtzt gives the terms of the reply rather differently : for he 
places among the conditions of good government (i) that the land- 
tax be levied only in kind, (2) that no delay be allowed, and 
(3) that the officials be paid punctually. 

^ See Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen^ t. i. p. 125 n. Ibn *Abd al 
Hakam, who gives the letters, had actually seen them, and De Sacy 
is quoted as fully admitting their authenticity, basing his opinion 
partly on the archaic character of the language used. I have 
followed Weil's translation closely. 



Muslim Government 457 

Omar, * upon you and your condition. You find 
yourself in a great and splendid country, whose 
inhabitants God has blessed in number and power, 
by land and by water. It is a land which even the 
Pharaohs, in spite of their unbelief, brought by use- 
ful works to a state of prosperity. I am therefore 
greatly astonished that it does not bring in the half 
of its former revenue, although this falling-off can- 
not be excused by reason of famine or failure of 
crops. Moreover you have written ere this of 
many taxes which you have laid upon the country. 
I hoped now that they would come to me, instead 
of which you bring excuses which have no meaning. 
I shall surely not take less than was formerly paid. 
. . . Even in the past year^ I might have demanded 
this of you, but I hoped that you would yourself 
fulfil your duty. Now, however, I see that it is 
your bad administration which hinders you. But, 
by the help of God, I have means to compel you to 
render me what I demand' ; and so forth. 

*Amr answers by admitting that under the 
Pharaohs, who gave great attention to agriculture, 
Egypt was more productive than now under the 
rule of the Muslims ^ : but he goes on to complain of 
the hard words used by the Caliph. ' I have served 

^ This seems to date the correspondence to about the beginning 
of 644. 

^ Ibn Rustah {Bibl. Geog. Arab, part vii. p. ii8) says that the 
revenue of Egypt under the Pharaohs was 96,000,000 dinars. Ab(i 
Sahh says that the Pharaoh of Moses' time raised 90,000,000, and 
Makrizi gives 90,000,000, adding that, according to Ibn Dahiah, 
the dinar then was worth three of Mushm date. ' Ash Sharif al 
Harrani says that from a Sahidic list translated into Arabic he found 
that the revenues of Egypt in the time of Joseph amounted to 
24,400,000 dinars,' i. e. 73,200,000 Muslim dinars : see Mr. Evetts' 
note on p. 80 of Abft Salih. 



458 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the Apostle of God,' he proceeds, ' and his successor, 
Abia Bakr; I have (praise be to God) answered 
to the trust reposed in me, and I have ren^dered 
towards my prince the duty which God laid upon 
me. . . . Now take back the governorship which you 
have given me : for God has kept me free from the 
avarice and meanness wherewith you have charged 
me in your letters. . . . You could not have said 
more of a Jew of Khaibar. God forgive you and 
me.* 

This simple and dignified language produced no 
effect upon Omar, who replied bluntly : * I did not 
send you to Egypt in order to sate your lusts and 
those of your people, but because I hoped you would 
by good administration increase our revenue. There- 
fore upon receipt of this letter send me the taxes ; 
for I have here people in great need.* 

*Amr begged for a respite till the time of harvest 
— precisely in accordance with Benjamins maxim. 
He urged that he could not raise a large revenue 
without injustice to the natives, and that it was 
better to be merciful to them than to oppress them, 
or to force them to provide the money by selling 
their necessaries \ It is needless to credit him, as 
Weil does, with insincerity and with sordid motives : 
for even if the love of money was growing upon 
the conqueror, it had not at this time filled his mind 
to the dispossession of his sense of justice and sense 
of duty to the Egyptians. But Omar set his face 
like flint against mercy in money matters. He 
dispatched Muhammad ibn Maslamah to Egypt with 
orders to raise what he could beyond the tribute 

^ This sentence is translated from Makrizt, Khitat, i. p. 78. 
An account of the correspondence is also given by Baladhmi 
(p. 219). 



Muslim Government 459 

which *Amr had already remitted, or, according to 
another account, to demand from *Amr one half of 
his private possessions. It is true that Ibn Masla- 
mah charged 'Amr with protecting the Egyptians 
for his own profit, just as Omar charged him with 
neglect of duty and fraud. But the admission that 
*Amr did protect the Egyptians, together with the 
language of his own apology, outweighs the evidence 
against him. And in truth the charge of greed 
recoils on Omar, who, as Baladhuri says, *was in 
the habit of fixing and writing down the total of the 
revenues of each province, when he appointed a 
governor for it; and whatever was raised beyond 
this amount he used to share with the governor, or 
in some cases take entirely for himself I Thus even 
the heroic Khalid had been called upon in Syria 
to give an account of all his possessions, and had 
been ordered to surrender one half of them, even 
it is said to the abandonment of one of the sandals 
on his feet. When counselled to restore what he 
had taken, Omar replied, ' Before God, I restore 
nothing : I am a merchant for the benefit of the 
Muslims.' By the Muslims he meant either himself 
or the narrow clique at Mecca : and this purblind 
view of his duty to Islam, this policy of filling his 
exchequer at the expense of his newly won do- 
minions, was destined to cost him his life. 

But the disastrous lesson had been too well learnt 
by his successor. When *Abdallah ibn Sa*d, who 
was made governor of Upper Egypt and the Fayum 
by Omar, replaced the conqueror as Viceroy of 
Egypt, he contrived to wring another 2,000,000 
dinars from the natives, raising the sum to 14,000,000. 
* The milch-camel gives more milk than in your 
time,' said Othman to *Amr. ' Yes,' was the reply ; 



460 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

* and the reason is that you are starving her young 
ones/ Not merely that, but to raise the tribute 
was clearly unlawful. I have already shown that 
when Wardan was ordered by the Caliph Mu'awtah 
to increase the tribute levied on the Copts, he 
answered that it was impossible owing to the terms 
of the treaty ^ : and I have quoted *Urwah son of 
Zubair as saying that * the people were taxed above 
their means and were in distress, notwithstanding 
the fact that 'Amr had made with them a treaty on 
fixed conditions.' 

All this contrasts with and vindicates the justice 
of *Amr. One anecdote told by Ibn *Abd al Hakam, 
if it deserved credence, would give rather a different 
impression. *Amr, he says, threatened death to any 
Copt who concealed treasure. A Christian of Upper 
Egypt, named Peter, was charged with such conceal- 
ment, but when brought before 'Amr, he stoutly 
denied it, *and so was imprisoned.* Shortly after- 
wards *Amr inquired if Peter had mentioned any 
name, and was told that he had only spoken of a 
monk of Mount Sinai. Thereupon *Amr had Peter s 
signet-ring removed, wrote a letter to the monk 
saying, ' Send me what you have,' and sealed it in 
Peter's name. In due time there came a messenger 
bearing in answer a small jar closed with a leaden 
seal. This was opened by 'Amr, who found inside 
a paper with the words, ' Your property is under 
the cistern.' So *Amr had the water drawn off from 
the cistern, and when the stone slabs of the floor 

^ Baladhuri, p. 217. Makrizt agrees. He gives Warden's 
answer as follows, ' How can the tribute be increased, when it was 
expressly stipulated that it should not be increased ? ' but he adds 
the information that Mu awiah's order was merely to increase the 
tribute by one kirat, i. e. by -^^^ or say two per cent. 



Muslim Government 461 

were taken up, a chamber was found containing 
thirty-two ^ bushels of gold coin. Thereupon Peter 
was beheaded in front of the mosque of *Amr at 
Babylon. One ought not perhaps to pass over such 
a story in silence ; but it would not stand and is 
hardly worth serious criticism. It is just one of 
those romances with which the writer loves to em- 
bellish his history. It is certain that the Copts had 
bitter reason to regret the removal of *Amr from the 
government. 

Little more need be said here about the incidence 
of the taxation : there is, however, one point of 
great importance to notice. The Muslims were at 
first forbidden to acquire land, and the land grants 
made were very few 2. The idea was that they 
should remain as soldiers, and not engage in agri- 
culture as settlers. As the permanency of the occu- 
pation was realized, this restriction was withdrawn 
or abandoned, and the Muslims became landowners. 
But in all cases the land which they acquired re- 
mained subject to land-tax, of which the equitable 
apportionment in no wise varied when possession 
was transferred from a Copt to a Muslim. Con- 
sequently if a Copt changed his religion for Islam, 
he gained no remission of the land-tax. It was 
otherwise, however, with the poll-tax. The pay- 
ment of poll-tax or tribute was the sign of subjection 
and the token of unbelief The adoption of Islam 
cancelled at once the unbelief and the subjection. 
On this point the Arab writers are agreed. The 
Caliph Omar ibn 'ABd al *Aziz (who died in January, 

^ Ibn Dukmak says fifty-two. 

2 Ibn *Abd al Hakam says that the only grant made by Omar 
was that of 1,000 feddans at Munyat al Asbagh to Ibn Sindar — 
a very excellent estate. 



462 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

720 A. D.) is condemned by Makrlzt for his rule that 
if a tributary dies, the poll-tax is due from his repre- 
sentatives : because * it seems/ he says, * that Egypt 
capitulated, and the terms of the capitulation are 
still in force : so if a man dies, the tribute, which is 
a tax on polls, cannot be levied from his survivors/ 
But the same Omar II * released all converts to 
Isl^m from payment of the poll-tax, although it had 
been exacted in such cases. The first to exact 
tribute from members of the protected peoples who 
were converted to Islam was Al Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. 
Then the Caliph 'Abd al Malik wrote to *Abd al 
*Aziz ibn Marwan bidding him do the same in Egypt : 
but Ibn Hujairah persuaded the latter not to intro- 
duce this unjust innovation, saying, ' Let us exact 
the poll-tax from Christian monks, but how can we 
take it from converts to Islam ? ' 

It is related that Ibn Sharik, who received this 
ruling of the Caliph's, made a remonstrance showing 
that conversions had largely reduced the total of 
the poll-tax, causing a deficit of 20,000 dinars in the 
sum apportioned for official salaries in the govern- 
ment service. The answer of the Caliph was in 
sharp, decisive language : ' I have received your letter. 
I made you commander-in-chief of the army in 
Egypt, but I recognize your weakness : therefore 
I have bidden my messenger to give you twenty 
blows on the head, after which I order you to re- 
lieve converts from payment of the poll-tax. Your 
opinion is hateful to God, who sent Mohammed as 
a guide, not as a tax-collector.' On this the Arab 
historian comments very justly : * Upon my life, 
Omars great desire was to convert all men to 
Islam 1.' 

^ Makrizt, Khitat, vol. i. p. 78 : see also the two preceding pages. 



Muslim Government 463 

There was therefore a direct premium placed on 
a change of religion ; and although religious freedom 
was in theory secured for the Copts under the 
capitulation, it soon proved in fact to be shadowy 
and illusory. For a religious freedom which became 
identified with social bondage and with financial 
bondage could have neither substance nor vitality. 
As Isldm spread, the social pressure upon the Copts 
became enormous, while the financial pressure at 
least seemed harder to resist, as the number of 
Christians or Jews who were liable for the poll-tax 
diminished year by year, and their isolation became 
more conspicuous. This vicious system of bribing 
the Christians into conversion had also the obvious 
effect of crippling the state revenues. The fall in 
the income from tribute was rapid. For while ' Amr, 
as we have seen, raised 12,000,000 dinars, and the 
tyrannical 'Abdallah ibn Sa'd raised 14,000,000 ; in 
the caliphate of Muawlah, when many had been 
converted, the total was reduced to 5,000,000. 
Under the great Hariin ar Rashid it fell to 4,000,000; 
and after that it remained at 3,000,000, till towards 
the end of the ninth century \ As the public 

^ Ya'kubi (died a. h. 260) gives this information {JBibL Geog. 
Arab, part vii. p. 339). BTe does not quite agree with Abu Salih, 
who makes out that the tribute stood at 5,000,000 dinars in the 
time of Ahmad ibn Tulun ; at 4,000,000 under Ya'kub ibn Yusuf; 
and that from this it dropped to 3,000,000 (p. 82). But the earlier 
writer here must clearly be preferred. Indeed Ibn Rustah says 
that under 'Abdallah ibn al Habhab the revenue was 2,700,337, 
but under Musa ibn 'Isd it had fallen to 2,180,000. This was 
circa a. h. i 80, or about the end of the eighth century (Bibl Geog. 
Arab., ib., p. 118). Yet it is difficult to believe that so vast a change 
had taken place in 1 50 years. Indeed according to Prof. S. Lane- 
Poole [The Story of Cairo, p. 60), conversions came slowly : * About 
ninety years after the conquest a governor, despairing of any con- 



464 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

exchequer thus became impoverished, new methods 
of taxation had to be devised to counterbalance the 
loss on the tribute ; and it can scarcely be doubted 
that in fixing fresh taxes some discrimination was 
made in favour of the Muslims as against the 
Christians. It is thus probable that in fact, as well 
as in seeming, the burdens of the Christians grew 
heavier in proportion as their numbers lessened. 
The wonder, therefore, is not that so many Copts 
yielded to the current which bore them with sweep- 
ing force over to Islam, but that so great a multitude 
of Christians stood firmly against the stream, nor 
have all the storms of thirteen centuries moved their 
faith from the rock of its foundation. 

Nevertheless, few things are more remarkable in 
history than the manner in which a handful of 
victorious Arabs from the desert absorbed and 
destroyed in Egypt, broadly speaking, both the 
Christian religion and that older Byzantine culture, 
which owed at once its refinement and its frailty 
to the blending of the three great and ancient civili- 
zations of Rome, Greece, and Egypt. 

siderable accession to the Muslim ranks, was driven to import 5,000 
Arabs into the Delta. It was only by slow degrees, after much 
intermarriage and many partial immigrations, that Egypt became 
Muslim.' This would seem rather to under-estimate the pressure 
put upon the Copts and its results. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

REVOLT OF ALEXANDRIA UNDER MANUEL 

Death of Omar. Othman deposes *Amr from the governorship. 
Character of 'Abdallah ibn Sa*d. Alexandrians intrigue with 
Constantinople. Manuel sent to recover Egypt, and welcomed at 
Alexandria. Gibbon's misstatement traced and corrected. 'Amr 
reinstated as commander-in-chief. The Copts side with the 
Arabs. The Roman army advances to Nikiou. Hotly contested 
engagement there. Romans driven back to Alexandria. The 
Arabs recapture the city by force of arms. Benjamin's demands 
from *Amr. Importance of the incident. Origin of some current 
historical errors explained. 

But the conquest of Egypt was not quite ended. 
The war, which seemed to have closed, was reopened 
by a fierce attempt on the part of the Romans to 
recover their dominion, and the story of this adventure 
has yet to be briefly recounted. 

Omars evil policy of keeping all his Viceroys 
under suspicion and displeasure, and of wringing the 
last farthing from his dominions, hastened his end. 
He was assassinated a few days before the close of 
A. H. 23, and buried on i Muharram, a.h. 24 ^ on 
which day Othman was proclaimed his successor 
in the caliphate. But bad as the rule of Omar 
had been, the change of rulers was a doubtful gain 
to the Muslim Empire. If Omar worried and abused 
his best agents, Othman deposed them. One of 
Omar's last acts had been to diminish the authority 
of *Amr ibn al *Asl by giving the government of 
Upper Egypt and the Fayum to *Abdallah ibn Sa*d 
ibn Abl Sarh, whom he also made controller of the 

^ November 7, 644. 

BUTLER H h 



466 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

land-tax. Othman completed 'Amr's discomfiture 
by removing him altogether from the government 
of Egypt in favour of this same *Abdallah, who was 
summoned from Shadmtih ^ in the Faytlm where he 
happened to be residing. 

Estimates of the new governor vary somewhat 
unaccountably. According to Nawawi, 'he was 
one of the most intelligent and noblest of the 
Kuraish ' ^ : while *Amr unsparingly condemned his 
incompetence both as governor and as military 
commander, and Tabari brands him with the 
strongest possible censure : ' Of all the waklls 
of Othman the worst was *Abdallah, governor of 
Egypt ' 2 ; and this at a time when the whole Muslim 
Empire was in a ferment of revolt against the 
iniquitous rule of the Caliph and his Viceroys. 
The more favourable opinion of *Abdallah seems 
merely a pleasant platitude, void of historical value. 
His oppression of the Egyptians is not a text which 
admits of two readings. The Caliph's purpose in 
appointing *Abdallah was to get a larger return 
from the tribute, and there is reason to think that 

^ YaMt, ed. Wiistenfeld, vol. iii. p. 265. 

2 Ed. Wustenfeld, p. 345. 

' Ed. Zotenberg, vol. iii. pp. 583 seq. When Othman called 
a council of his Viceroys in view of the disaffection, this 'Abdallah 
thus spoke his mind with cynical frankness : ' Prince of the Faithful, 
men are all greedy: divide the public treasure among the dis- 
contented, and you will secure them all.' But this was not the 
language of 'Amr, whose stern but fearless rectitude comes out in 
his speech : ' Othman ! or Prince of the Faithful, I should say : 
there is not one of the Prophet's companions whom you have not 
wounded. The people groan under your tyranny and that of your 
wakils. Recall your wakils, or else renounce your authority and 
your responsibility. But if you think to essay violence — then, in the 
name of God !' Othman called'*Amr a lousy fellow for his pains, 
yet acted upon his advice for the moment. 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 467 

*Abdallah s first measure was to increase the pro- 
portion borne by the Alexandrians. Unquestion- 
ably the burden of taxation now lay very heavily 
upon them ; and it was their distress under its 
weight which prompted some of their leading men 
to write letters to the Emperor Constans at Byzan- 
tium, praying to be delivered from the tyranny of 
the Muslims. At the same time they pointed out 
that Alexandria was held by a very weak garrison, 
quite incapable of resisting a Roman army. 

These arguments prevailed with Constans, who 
had never forgotten the wound to the pride and 
to the prosperity of the Empire caused by the loss 
of Egypt. He ordered a large armament to be 
prepared with the utmost secrecy. The Romans 
were still masters of the sea : their naval supremacy 
was as yet uncontested and unchallenged. Omar 
had heard vague rumours of ocean warfare, and 
had written to ask 'Amr's opinion about it, saying, 
' Describe to me the sea and its rider.' To this 
*Amr had quaintly answered : ' Verily I saw a huge 
construction, upon which diminutive creatures 
mounted. If the vessel lie still, it rends the heart; 
if it move, it terrifies the imagination. Upon it a 
man s power ever diminishes and calamity increases. 
Those within the ship are like worms in a log. If 
it rolls over, they are drowned ; if it escapes peril, 
they are confounded.' And this description had 
sufficed to daunt Omar, who was remarkable for 
his fierce courage, and to deter him from ordering 
Muawiah to adventure upon the sea^. It was 
not till Muawiah himself became Caliph that the 
Arabs learned the meaning and the value of sea- 
power. 

^ Suyfitfs History of the Caliphs, tr. by H. S. Jarrett, p. i6o. 
H h 2 



468 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

There was therefore no Arab vessel afloat now 
to bring news of the expedition which the Emperor 
had dispatched under the command of Manuel for 
the recovery of Alexandria. A great fleet of three 
hundred sail bore into the harbour without warning, 
and anchored without resistance ^. There were only 
a thousand Arab soldiers to defend the city : these 
were quickly overpowered and slain, very few making 
good their escape : and Alexandria came once more 
under the dominion of the Caesars. 

It is this incident which has given rise to the 
curious statement, found in Gibbon and other 
writers, that three or four days after the original 
capture of Alexandria the Romans, who had de- 
parted by sea, returned and surprised the scattered 
forces of the Arabs, and regained for a brief space 
possession of the city. There is no foundation for 
such a story, which rests on a mere misunderstanding. 
It springs in fact out of that confusion between the 
first and the second capture of Alexandria which 
blends the details of the two events. For example, 
the story postulates a capture by storm in the first 
instance, and has nothing to rest on if there was no 
capture by storm. But it has been proved beyond 
question that Alexandria was taken in the first 
instance under capitulation ; that an armistice of 
eleven months was granted to the inhabitants; and 
that on the expiry of that term the Arabs made 

^ There is one of the usual contradictions on this point among 
the authorities. Ibn Khaldiin says that the fleet remained off the 
coast because Al Mukaukas forbade the Romans to land. Al 
Mukaukas was of course dead. Ibn 'Abd al Hakam's account is 
that the fleet anchored at Alexandria, and the Romans in the city 
joined the imperial forces : and all the other Arab writers make it 
clear that the Romans took possession of the city and slaughtered 
the garrison. 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 469 

a peaceable entry. Their occupation of the city- 
was undisturbed from that moment until the arrival 
of ManueP. 

Upon the date of this seizure of Alexandria by 
the Romans there is unusual agreement among the 
Arab writers, who place it at the beginning of a. h. 
25, i.e. towards the end of 645 of our era-. With 
regard to the position of 'Amr ibn al 'Asi at that 
moment, the same consent Is not to be found. If 
Tabari Is to be believed — and his authority is very 
high — 'Amr had actually been recalled to Mecca ^, 

^ The story is justified by the language of Suyutt, who says : 'After 
the capture of the city and the flight of the Romans by land and 
sea, 'Amr left 1,000 of his companions within the walls, and went in 
pursuit of the fugitives by land. But those who had escaped by 
sea returned to Alexandria, killed all the Muslims who were unable 
to flee, and took possession of the city' (p. 73). But the confusion 
is that of a compiler selecting events in ignorance of their true 
historical order. The incident is a mere gleam reflected back from 
the later story of Manuel's raid. It may be said that the same 
double account of a descent on Alexandria occurs almost textually 
in Eutychius (ap. Migne, Patr. Gr. t. iii, col. 11 12). This points 
no doubt to a common origin ; but the original source is vicious ; 
and when once it is proved, as it has been, that the first capture of 
Alexandria was by peaceable surrender, the whole fabric of the 
romance falls to pieces. Briefly then the story has no genuine 
warrant ; it clashes with facts ascertained beyond dispute ; John of 
Nikiou knows nothing about it; and it must be banished from 
history. 

^ Baladhuri (p. 221) gives this date with a possible alternative of 
A. H. 23. Ibn al Athir (p. 62) says a. h. 25. Yakut and Abii '1 
Mahasin agree. Makrizi says that the seizure of Alexandria by the 
Romans took place in a.h. 24, and its reconquest a. h. 25; which 
account is also given by Abfi '1 Mahasin, who places the defeat of 
the Romans in the month Rabi' I, a month nearly coinciding with 
January, 646. This, however, seems hardly to allow time enough 
for the events of the campaign. 

' Ed. Zotenberg, vol. iii. p. 559. He says that in the beginning 
of A.H. 25 Othman began to depose Omar's Viceroys : but when 



470 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

and, when the news of the revolt arrived, he there 
received orders to resume the command in Egypt. 
In any case it seems certain that he had been 
removed from office prior to the landing of the 
Romans, and that his incapable successor had let 
the defences of the country fall into a state of 
dangerous weakness. Manuel's army not only held 
Alexandria unchallenged, but they roamed over the 
adjacent country of the Delta, plundering the towns 
and villages and levying supplies of corn and wine 
and money with impunity. Nor do they seem to 
have paid much regard to professions of friendship ^ : 
wherever the army moved, or detachments were 
scattered in idle occupation, the people were for the 
most part treated as conquered enemies. 

Yet there must have been marked exceptions. 

he heard of the revolt of Alexandria, he made 'Amr start for Egypt. 
This clearly would throw the reconquest considerably later into the 
year 646. Baladhuri agrees that *Amr was deprived of his 
government in a. h. 25 in favour of *Abdallah ibn Sa'd (p. 222); 
whose appointment is dated in the same year by Nawawi (p. 345), but 
in A. H. 26 by Ibn al Athfr (p. 67). Ibn *Abd al Hakam in speaking of 
the revolt says, * By this time Othman had removed *Amr from the 
government,' as quoted by Makrizi {Khiiat, vol. i. p. 167) ; and in 
another passage on the governors of Fustat, Makrizt speaking of 
'Abdallah says : ' When Manuel the Eunuch attacked Alexandria, 
the people begged the Caliph to reinstate *Amr, so that he might 
fight the Romans.' On the whole it seems established that *Amr 
was removed before the revolt : but it is not clear whether he had 
actually left Egypt. Eutychius says distinctly that he was then in 
Egypt, while Abii '1 Mahasin says that ' Othman relieved him of 
the cares of government, that he might give all his energy to fighting 
Manuel' (p. 73). 

^ Ibn al Athir says that the Romans 'extorted money and supplies 
from people in the neighbourhood of the capital, whether friendly 
to their cause or not ' (p. 62). Al Makrizi says that they ' began to 
occupy the villages and drink their wines and eat their food and 
lay waste all the country.' 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 471 

— For this revival of Roman power was due of course 
to the Roman element, which. was strong in Alex- 
andria, and which counted on a certain amount of 
sympathy among the people of the Delta: and 
whole villages are mentioned as having sided with 
the Romans. On the other hand, the Copts had 
little enough to hope from a renewal of Roman 
ascendency. The record of Cyrus' persecution was 
graven too deep upon their memories : and even 
now, though the shadow of another tyranny was 
coming over them, they had a measure of civil 
and religious freedom greater than they could dream 
of retaining under the rule of Byzantium. The 
Copts, therefore, not only sided with the Arabs 
at this crisis, but they would have been guilty of 
supreme folly if they had again courted the stripes 
and fetters of the imperial government. Whether 
the Patriarch Benjamin remained in Alexandria, or 
whether he fled before the returning Roman army, 
is not quite certain, although the evidence points 
strongly to his flight or absence at the moment : 
but there is no question that both in act and in 
sympathy he stood with his people loyal to the 
cause of the Arabs, as bound by the Treaty of 
Alexandria. 

While the Roman army were amusing themselves 
in tasting the delights of Egypt again, and were 
proving again their skill in throwing away golden 
opportunities, *Amr had, on the urgent petition of 
the Arabs, been reinstated in the military command 
at Babylon. It was felt at once that his unrivalled 
prestige and unrivalled ability were demanded to 
cope with a situation as dangerous as any in the 
history of the conquest. For if the Roman army, 
instead of wasting their time* in the Delta, had 



472 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

marched straight for Fustat, it is quite possible 
that they might have defeated 'Abdallah and have 
recaptured Babylon. As it was, they allowed *Amr 
ample time to take up his post and to organize his 
army. He was in no way hurried. Indeed Kharijah 
ibn Hudhafah, the commander of the fortress of 
Babylon, thinking that delay was all in favour of 
the Romans, urged 'Amr to strike at once before 
the enemy were reinforced, or the whole of Egypt 
would be in insurrection. 'Amr took a different 
view. * Nay,' he said, * I will challenge them to 
come out and attack me. So they will do damage 
to the people of the country through which they 
pass, and God will confound one part of our enemies 
by the other.' It is worth remarking that the Arab 
generals at this stage made no distinction between 
Copts and Romans : they clearly thought that both 
parties alike were in armed rebellion. This proves 
that they had no ground of presumption that the 
Copts were friendly or even neutral : yet they 
would have had very strong ground if it had been 
true that the Copts on the original invasion hailed 
the Arabs as deliverers. 

Accordingly the Romans, moving leisurely, were 
drawn on southwards as far as Nikiou^ before they 

^ Weil {Geschichte der Chah/en, vol. i. p. 158 n.) cannot settle the 
name of the town, which is given by Ibn 'Abd al Hakam in many 
forms— Nafyus, Takyus, Tayiis, Nafuis, &c. These are simple and 
easy transformations of the original ,^j^ — mere variations of the 
points. Makrizi gives the form correctly, and the words 'Then 
a battle took place on land and on the river' would almost alone 
remove any doubt. Moreover Yakut (vol. iv. p. 810) says, 'At 
Nakyus there was a battle between *Amr and the Romans, when 
they rebelled against bim,' clearly pointing to the revolt of Manuel. 
Weil of course had not seen John of Nikiou's Chronicle, and he 
had no very clear idea of the topography of the conquest. 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 473 

encountered the advance of the Arabs, who numbered 
perhaps 15,000 men ^ We are not told whether 
Nikiou itself was taken : but a desperate battle took 
place between the two armies under the walls of 
the fortress and on the canal or river which ran 
by the town. The Roman army fought with signal 
valour. *Amr himself was in the thick of the 
combat, and having his horse wounded by an arrow 
was obliged to dismount and fight on foot. In one 
part of the field the Arabs were routed and put to 
flight. Conspicuous on the Roman side, both for 
his prowess and for the magnificence of his armour 
chased and inlaid with gold, was a mounted officer, 
who, as the battle hung in doubt, shouted a challenge 
to the Arabs to single combat. One Humil, of the 
tribe of Zubaid, took up the challenge, and the two 
champions tilted with spears without decisive result. 
Then the Roman flung away his lance and a long 
duel followed, sword against scimitar. Meanwhile 
the two armies paused and watched the encounter, 
standing in serried ranks beside the lists and shouting 
encouragement to the combatants. At last a fierce 
lunge made by the Roman was parried and returned 
with a blow of the Arab's scimitar, which clove deep 
through the collar-bone of his adversary and killed 
him. Humil himself was covered with wounds, 
which shortly proved fatal; and *Amr had his 
body sent on a litter to Fustat, where it was buried 
at the foot of the Mukattam Hills. 

On the fall of the Roman champion the battle 
was renewed with fresh fury ; but it ended at last 
in the defeat of Manuel's forces, which were driven 

^ Baladhuri puts 'Amr's army at 1,500, but this is probably 
a mistake for 15,000. The Roman army was doubtless superior 
in numbers. 



474 ^^^ Arab Conquest of Egypt 

in headlong rout towards Alexandria. The broken 
army reached the capital in great disorder, hotly- 
pursued by the Arabs, but they closed the gates 
and prepared to stand a siege ^ As * Amr marched 
through the Delta he was everywhere assisted by 
the Coptic villages, which provided bridge-builders 
and such supplies as they could furnish after being 
plundered by the Romans. When the Saracen 
army came once more before the walls of Alex- 
andria, and *Amr surveyed the almost impregnable 
defences of the city, he was keenly mortified, as he 
reflected on the folly which had left them standing, 
and yet unarmed by a proper garrison ; and he 
swore that if he captured the city a second time, 
he would level its walls and make it as easy to 
enter as the house of a harlot. The Arab camp 
was pitched on the eastern side of the city — the 
only side open to siege operations — and he is said 
to have set up his engines of war, and battered the 
walls till a breach was effected. This story, how- 
ever, runs counter to all that is known of the vast 
strength of the ramparts ; and it is much easier to 
credit another account which in this siege, as in the 
siege of Diocletian, makes the capture due largely 
to treason from within. For It Is said that one of 
the warders of the gate, named Ibn Bisdmah, entered 

^ Baladhuri makes no mention of Nikiou: but he gives an 
engagement near Alexandria. ' 'Amr encamped near Alexandria, 
where he was attacked by the Roman forces, who were ravaging 
the country. After enduring the attack for an hour behind their 
trenches, the Arabs charged and put the Romans to flight, so that 
they retreated in haste without stopping or turning till they had 
re-entered the gates of Alexandria ' (p. 221). Of course there may 
have been a second battle near the city. In any case the extract 
is interesting as showing that the Arabs had adopted the Roman 
system of entrenched camps. 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 475 

into communication with *Amr, and undertook to 
throw open the gate, if his own safety and that of 
his family and property was guaranteed ^ 

In whatever manner an entrance was made, the 
city was taken by storm in act of resistance, and 
the Arabs rushed in plundering, burning, and slaying 
all before them. Nearly all that remained in the 
eastern quarter by the gate, including the church 
of St. Mark, perished in the fire ; and the work of 
slaughter went on till somewhere in the middle of 
the city *Amr himself put an end to it. The spot 
on which he had bidden his followers to sheath the 
sword was afterwards marked by a mosque called 
the Mosque of Mercy. Some part of the Roman 
soldiers managed to reach their ships and put out 
to sea : but great numbers perished in the city, 
and Manuel himself was among the fallen. The 
women and children were taken as the prize of war. 

This was the second capture of Alexandria; it took 
place in the summer of 646, and it was a capture by 
force. The two events are very clearly distinguished 
in time and in circumstance : but unfortunately they 
have not been kept apart by Arab writers, and it is 
past the power of criticism to bring back to their 
right order the two series of incidents, which are 
found in almost every possible permutation. This, 
however, is beyond question the place for recording 
one incident which has caused much perplexity, 
having been taken out of its proper setting and 
thrust into the story of the first capture, viz. the visit 
said to have been paid by Al Mukaukas to * Amr for 

^ This account is preserved by Suyutt, who seems to connect it 
with the first capture. In this he is wrong, but the story may well 
be true of the second capture. The confusion between the two 
events is invincible. 



476 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the purpose of making some very strange proposals. 
Of course Al Mukaukas was dead long ago : but 
just as the title is mistakenly carried back by Arab 
writers to the governor before the conquest who 
received Mohammed's mission, so it is mistakenly pre- 
served after the conquest, and applied to Benjamin, 
the Coptic Patriarch ^ Accordingly, when one reads 
that during the siege of Alexandria Al Mukaukas 
came to *Amr and offered to help him on three condi- 
tions, the episode must be construed as referring to 
Benjamin's action in connexion with the revolt of 
Alexandria, when Manuel's army had seized the city. 
The dislocation of this incident is of extreme im- 
portance for the history of the conquest: it is in 
fact the main cause of the misunderstanding upon 
which the most erroneous versions are founded. 
There is no such thing as a critical history of the 
conquest. All the Arab historians give a selection 
of passages from various writers recording different 
events ; but in their process of selection they often 
fail to distinguish what ought to be distinguished, 
and they group together Incidents which are out 
of true chronology and order. When once the story 

^ See Appendix on the Mukaukas. The fact of Cyrus' death is 
truly recorded in the story of the poisoned signet-ring, though the 
story itself is, as I have shown, quite apocryphal. Baladhurt is 
conscious of the difficulty of representing Al Mukaukas as alive at 
this time. His words are (p. 222): *It is said by some that Al 
Mukaukas deserted the Alexandrians when they rebelled, and that 
consequently 'Amr retained him and his friends in their offices. 
Others say that Al Mukaukas was dead before the rebellion broke 
out.' The fact is that Benjamin was now Patriarch and leader of 
the native Egyptian community, as Cyrus had been Patriarch and 
leader of the Roman-Egyptian community : and it is not surprising 
that some Arab historians transferred the title from the one person- 
ality to the other. But this confusion of persons naturally led to 
confusion of events and dates. 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 477 

gets out of place and out of relation to its true 
context, it becomes insensibly modified to suit its 
new surroundings, and in many cases degenerates into 
falsehood or absurdity. So it is here. For Makrizi ^ 
gives the three stipulations named by Al Mukaukas 
to *Amr as follows : (i) that the Arabs should never 
break their treaty with the Copts, and should reckon 
him (Al Mukaukas) among them\ (2) that they 
should make no treaty with the Romans ; (3) that 
they should bury him by the bridge at Alexandria 2. 
Now this statement of the terms is not only wholly 
improbable in itself, but it is a gross perversion of 
the original account from which it was taken. It 
represents Al Mukaukas as, by inference, a Roman 
begging the Arabs to observe their compact with 
the Copts and to make no compact with the Romans ; 
and from this springs the story that the Copts, as 
opposed to the Romans, made a treaty with the 
Arabs on their arrival in Egypt; and from this 
again springs the legend that the Copts welcomed 
the Arabs as deliverers. But the same authority 
gives another version of the terms, as follows, from 
Ibn *Abd al Hakam ^ : (i) that the Romans should 
not be treated as generously as the Copts, because 
they had suspected Al Mukaukas on account of the 
advice he had given them ; (2) that the treaty made 
with the Copts, to which they assuredly would adhere, 
should not be broken ; (3) that Al Mukaukas him- 
self should be buried at St. John's church. Here 
we get back to an earlier version and so nearer the 
truth ; and it is specially to be noted that there is not 

^ Khitat, vol. i. p. 293. 

'^ tijS^'3\j^-. In Suyutt it is given ^JiJ:». ^j\ ^J, a corrup- 
tion of jjMi*^. or St. John. 
^ Khtiat, vol. i. p. 163. 



478 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

a word corresponding to the sentence I have put in 
italics. The supposed request of Al Mukaukas to 
be reckoned as a Copt is a wholly unauthorized 
insertion of a writer who sought by it to clear up 
a position which quite naturally passed his under- 
standing. The insertion was made to support the 
erroneous theory that Al Mukaukas was with the 
Copts in sympathy, and had negotiated a treaty in 
their favour. 

But fortunately there survives in Baladhuri a 
version of the demands of Al Mukaukas, which 
proves clearly that the incident belongs not to 
the first capture of Alexandria but to the revolt 
of Manuel, and that by Al Mukaukas only Benjamin 
can originally have been intended. In that version 
what Benjamin asked of *Amr was as follows : * (i) 
not to grant as favourable terms to the Romans as 
to me, and (2) not to ill-treat the Copts, because it is 
not they who have broken the treaty ; and (3) if I die, 
have me buried in such a church ^! Now this phrase 

^ The Arabic ^^ ^-« t^b J ,^JLiJl ^^U for the words in italics 
is very clear : ^^je^ can only mean the ' breaking of the treaty/ 
These words I have taken from an extract made for me by the 
Grand Mufti of Egypt from some Cairo MS. De Goeje's version 
(p. 215) puts the terms rather differently : (i) that the Romans, 
who had suspected and rejected Al Mukaukas' pacific proposals, 
should receive less favourable terms than the Copts ; (2) that the 
treaty made with the Copts should not be broken, while the Copts 
on their part would remain faithful to the Arabs ; (3) as before. 
Amdlineau in referring to this incident (though he associates it with 
the first capture) cites the third demand, viz. that for burial in a 
church, as proof that Al Mukaukas referred to must have been 
a Patriarch. He says: 'II ^tait patriarche parce que les seuls 
patriarches avaient la prerogative de se faire enterrer dans une 
egHse. Je n'ai jamais rencontrd dans un document Copte la plus 
petite mention qu'un ^veque, un saint moine, un martyr aient ^te 
enterr^s dans Tdglise de leur paroisse ^piscopale, de leur monastbre, 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 479 

In Italics illuminates the whole matter. The Copts 
were no party to the rebellion of Alexandria, which 
was a breach of the treaty made by Cyrus, Al 
Mukaukas. They had no sympathy with this con- 
spiracy to restore the Roman Empire. Accordingly 
their chief — Benjamin as he now was — approached 
'Amr, and promised the aid of his people, provided 
that they, who had been loyal, should be honourably 
treated and not confounded with the rebels. Thus 
replaced in Its proper context the Incident becomes 
as Intelligible and interesting as before it was obscure 
and puzzling. I venture to dwell upon It at some 
length, because it really is of great historical moment, 
and because It gives a good Illustration of the 
difficulties which criticism has to encounter, and may 
hope to remove. 

Such then were the Patriarch's proposals. On 
hearing them *Amr had remarked, * The last Is the 
easiest of the three.' It was easy to promise 
Benjamin burial In the church of St. John, but 
It was not easy to distinguish In all cases between 
the action of the Copts and that of the Romans, 

de leur village : au contraire, rien n'est plus frequent dans Thistoire 
des patriarches' {Journal Asiah'que, Nov.-Dec. 1888, p. 401). 
But Am^lineau's argument does not hold good of the Melkites, 
because Abu Salih expressly states that the Melkites, as well as 
the Armenians and Nestorians, 'bury in their churches' (p. 136). 
Assuming that Amdlineau is correct as regards the Copts, though 
there may be some doubt about it, his argument could then only 
prove that it was a Coptic Patriarch, and not a Roman, who 
approached 'Amr; that it was in fact Benjamin and not Cyrus. 
This only corroborates my view that the episode belongs to the 
period of Manuel's revolt, when Cyrus was dead and Benjamin 
was in power again. Among the Copts at the present day bishops 
also have the privilege of being buried in the churches; but I 
cannot say how far back such a privilege was recognized. 



480 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

or to decide how far the Copts were responsible 
for the insurrection. The point at which the inter- 
view between *Amr and Benjamin took place is 
doubtful, but it may be conjectured that it was at 
Babylon before *Amr set out on his march to meet 
the Romans, and before he felt sure what part the 
Copts had been playing. From the first they had 
probably shown a passive hostility to Manuel ; they 
certainly aided the march of the Arabs through the 
Delta ; and this attitude must have been determined 
by Benjamin in virtue of his arrangement with the 
Arab leader. 

Here, then, at last we find the Copts in willing co- 
operation, under regular agreement, with the Arabs, 
and their co-operation continued until the Roman 
army was destroyed and Alexandria recaptured. 
And this discovery reveals the true foundation on 
which rests the story of an alliance made between 
the Copts and the Arabs upon the first entry of the 
Arabs into Egypt — a story which is false in itself 
and has been refuted over and over again in these 
pages, but which has been built on a basis of mingled 
fact and misunderstanding. Briefly the story is true 
of the campaign ending with the second capture of 
Alexandria, and not of any earlier campaign ; it is 
true of the rebellion, and not true of the conquest ; 
it is a historical picture, but set in the wrong 
framing ^ 

^ Since writing the above I have found a passage in Ibn Dukmdk 
which completely corroborates the fact that the three conditions 
demanded of 'Amr must be referred to the time of Manuel's revolt. 
I give it in full : ' Ibn Wahb says that, according to Al Laith ibn 
Sa'd, Al Mukaukas the Roman, who was Viceroy (dJU) of Egypt, 
made terms of peace with 'Amr. The terms were, that those of 
the Romans who pleased should be allowed to depart, and that 
a tribute of two dinars a head should be paid by the Copts. 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 481 

But there is one other legend which has perplexed 
and misled historians, and which may now be once 
for all banished. I have already mentioned the 
story — found in the pages of Severus and Theo- 
phanes — that Cyrus paid tribute to the Arabs for 
three or more years before the invasion of Egypt 
and in order to buy off the Arabs ; and this story 
I have denounced as wholly unworthy of credence ^ 
without finally demonstrating its falsity. Now, how- 
ever, the clearest light is thrown upon its genesis, 
and it is seen to be a fallacious inference from a 
misunderstood passage in a compressed and garbled 
narrative. I have no doubt that the story came 
originally from a Greek authority, such as Theo- 
phanes, who had run the events of several years 
together in a confused summary which has little 
or no regard for chronology. Theophanes alleges 
that when the Arabs attacked Egypt, Cyrus promised 
under a convention that Egypt should pay a yearly 
tribute of 200,000 dinars ; and he goes on to say ^ : ' So 

Heraclius, however, repudiated these terms, and in his anger sent 
Manuel to fight the Arabs. When *Amr was besieging Alexandria, 
Al Mukaukas came out to him and said, "I ask three things of 
you." ^'What are they?" (i) " That you will not grant the same 
terms to the Romans as you have to me; for I advised them to 
submit and they were deaf to my counsels ; (2) that you will not 
break your treaty with the Copts, for they have not broken their 
treaty with you ; and (3) that I may be buried in Abu Yuliannis 
when I die."' Of course this passage has its own confusions: 
e.g. it seems to make Manuel's expedition follow closely upon 
Heraclius' rejection of the first treaty, and it confuses Cyrus, 
Heraclius' Viceroy, who died long before Manuel's arrival, with 
Benjamin : but it clearly shows the connexion of the three demands 
with the campaign of Manuel. See Dr. VoUers' ed. of Ibn Dukmak, 
part V. p. 118. 

^ Supra, pp. 207-9. 

^ Corp. Hist. Script. Byzani. t. 44, p. 167. This convention 

BUTLER I i 



482 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Cyrus for three years saved Egypt from extermina- 
tion, Cyrus then was accused before the Emperor 
of paying Egyptian gold in tribute to the Arabs, 
and the Emperor in wrath summoned Cyrus and 
appointed Manuel, an Armenian, as Augustal. When 
the year was out, the Arabs sent to receive their 
money ; but Manuel answered, *' I am no defenceless 
Cyrus to pay you tribute, but am well armed," and 
so sent them empty away. Then the Arabs armed 
against Egypt, and, making war, drove Manuel 
before them ; but he got safely with a few followers 
to Alexandria. Then the Arabs again put Egypt 
under tribute. When the Emperor heard of all 
this, he sent Cyrus to persuade the Arabs to retire 
from Egypt under the former convention. Cyrus 
came to their camp, and said he was innocent of 
the treachery, and would confirm on oath the former 
agreement. The Arabs wholly refused this arrange- 
ment.' It is really impossible to characterize the 
blunders and the confusions of this narrative : it 
is a tissue of misstatement. Yet any one reading 
it would be bound to infer that the Arabs were 
met by Cyrus on their first advance, and bribed 
to retire from the country; that Manuel was sent 
by Heraclius directly he heard of the arrangement ; 
and that after the defeat of Manuel, the Arabs 

can only be the Treaty of Alexandria, which is confused with the 
Treaty of Babylon. The 'three years' are a reminiscence of 
the period between the actual occupation of Alexandria, 642, 
and the mission of Manuel, 645. What 'the year' may mean 
cannot be known. The demand for tribute could only have 
reached Manuel in Alexandria, yet just below Manuel is driven 
back to that place. Theophanes makes Cyrus alive after this 
event, just as some of the Arab writers make Al Mukaukas alive, 
of course quite wrongly : Cyrus is confused with Benjamin. But 
the whole account is as uncritical and unhistorical as possible. 



Revolt of Alexandria under Manuel 483 

refused to renew the original convention, which bound 
them to evacuate the country. Such is the per- 
version of history upon which this legend of the 
tribute is founded : it needs no further refutation ^ : 
and yet serious works of the present day regard the 
legend as truth 2. 

^ Theophanes appears to make these events happen in the 
twenty-fifth year of Heraclius. Von Ranke quotes Michael the 
Syrian (ed. Langlois from the Armenian) as confirming the story 
of tribute. Of course Michael followed Theophanes, or the same 
source as Theophanes, down to 746 at least : but if Von Ranke 
had quoted another sentence or two, he would have had to 
acknowledge the absurdity of Michael's narrative. For Michael 
makes Omar invade and conquer Egypt previous to the conquest 
of Jerusalem, or rather its surrender by the Patriarch Sophronius. 
The mistake of Omar for *Amr is pardonable : but the historian 
who makes payment of tribute by Cyrus anterior to the Arab 
invasion of Egypt must be judged by the fact that on the same 
page he makes the Arab conquest of Egypt anterior to the fall 
of Jerusalem. 

^ E.g. Prof. Bury's Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 269, n. 3. 



I 1 2 



CHAPTER XXX 

CONCLUSION 

Treatment of Alexandria. Story of Talama. Restoration of 
captives. Remonstrance of the loyal Copts, and award of com- 
pensation. Reinstatement of 'Abdallah and departure of *Amr. 
Final effort of the Romans baffled. Close of this history. 
Questions of interest which might be followed. Death of Benjamin. 
Death of *Amr, and the place of his burial. 

Alexandria met and deserved the fate of a con- 
quered town. The city had been guilty of rebellion 
in taking up arms against the Arabs and in calling 
upon the Romans for aid. The revolt might have 
been justified, if it had been successful: but the 
rebels now were doubly in the wrong — they had 
broken the treaty of capitulation, and they had failed 
to reconquer the country. It is not easy to decide 
whether they had any moral ground for the breach 
of treaty. Such ground could only be furnished if 
the treaty had been broken by the Arabs. There 
are hints that this was the case — that tribute had 
been exacted in excess of the covenanted amount ; 
but clear proof is wanting. In any case the action 
taken by the Emperor would seem quite indefensible. 
He had put his hand and seal to a solemn compact, 
in which he had promised that the withdrawal of his 
forces from Egypt should be final, that no Roman 
army should again land in the country. If he con- 
sidered that the Arabs had not kept the terms of 
the treaty, he might have denounced It as no longer 
binding : but it was against all the laws of war to 
equip a vast armament in secret, and to seize the 



Conclusion 485 

capital of Egypt in direct defiance of treaty \ The 
Arabs therefore were entitled to treat the rebels 
with some sternness. And in their entry, when the 
city was given over to fire and sword, no discrimina- 
tion could well be made between friend and foe, 
Copt and Roman. It was otherwise with regard to 
the country places. As soon as the revolt had been 
stamped out in Alexandria, * Amr in fulfilment of his 
vow ordered the walls on the eastern side of the 
city to be razed to the ground. He then turned his 
arms against those towns in the Delta which had 
overtly aided the rebellion. It seems that Talama 2, 
the governor, or ex-governor, of Ikhna, a coast- 
town between Alexandria and Rosetta, had been 
one of the prime movers in the rebellion, having 
himself journeyed to Constantinople and returned 
in company with the Roman armament. The defeat 
of the Romans left him in a forlorn position. He 
was taken prisoner, and brought before *Amr, who 
was advised to put him to death. The Arab com- 
mander, however, treated the matter lightly. He 
ordered golden armlets to be put on Talama, a 
crown on his head, and a purple robe on his 

* The Arabs had a great regard for the point of honour in such 
matters. When a little later than this the Caliph Othman was 
besieged in his own house by a force from Egypt, the cutting off 
of his water-supply aroused great indignation in Islam. Tabari 
says, ' This is a thing which is disallowed against the besieged even 
among the Romans/ The statement is at least curious. 

^ See above, p. 349. Weil has no warrant whatever for his 
assertion that Talama was a Copt: on the contrary, he was 
distinctly a Roman governor. The whole movement of the revolt 
came from the Byzantine party, or Melkite party, in Egypt. The 
Copts had neither sympathy with it nor share in it. To speak of 
the Copts as desiring the return of the Romans at this juncture 
and as promising their whole force in aid of it, is an extraordinary 
perversion of history. 



486 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

shoulders : then mockingly told him to depart and 
bring another of his imperial armies against Egypt. 
In the end Talama was thankful to be allowed to 
stay in Egypt and pay the poll-tax ^ The other 
towns which fought on the side of the Romans in 
the revolt of Manuel were in the main the same as 
those which offered strongest resistance to the Arabs 
in the original conquest of Egypt, viz. Balhib, Khais, 
Suntais, Fartasa, and Sakhd^. From all these places, 

^ The Arab writers associate Talama's demand concerning the 
tribute (see above, 1. c.) with this incident. It is exceedingly 
difficult to say which of the incidents told in connexion with 
Manuel's revolt belong properly to the first, and which to the 
second, capture of Alexandria. But there is very strong evidence 
that a separate special treaty was concluded with Talama, and this 
can only have been on his first capitulation. I have little doubt 
that he was continued in office by the Arabs, and abused the trust 
reposed in him to foment the rebellion. But in the second 
instance, when he was absolutely at 'Amr's mercy as a captured 
rebel, there could be no question of a special treaty. The account 
of his treatment by 'Amr is given by Makrizt and others. 

^ Here again there is some difficulty in getting at the truth. 
Thus when Yakftt says (vol. i. p. 733) that with Balhib 'Amr made 
peace on the terms of the poll-tax and land-tax on his way to 
Alexandria, he can only refer to 'Amr's first march on Alexandria. 
Yet he goes on to say, '■ The people of Egypt helped 'Amr in his 
struggle with the Alexandrians, except Balhib, Khais, Suntais, 
Fartasa, and SakhS, which all assisted the Romans. Therefore 
when 'Amr had taken Alexandria, he made captives of the people 
of those towns, and sent them to Medina and other places ; but 
Omar restored them to their homes, and included them in the 
general protection granted to the Egyptians': and this passage 
can relate only to the time of the rebellion. It is true that Omar's 
name is wrongly used instead of Othman's, but that mistake is 
easily accounted for and easily corrected; whereas the opposition 
between the statement that Balhib made a treaty of peace, and that 
Balhib continued hostile and was conquered by force, is irrecon- 
cilable. The truth seems that this place, having originally come 
under treaty, joined in Manuel's rebellion. So of Khais, Yakfit 



Conclusion 487 

as from Alexandria Itself, captives were taken and 
were sent to Medina : but when the Caliph Othman 
was formally consulted with regard to the treatment 
of the rebel towns, he had the good sense to return 
the captives and to grant an Indemnity to the in- 
habitants concerned in the revolt, restoring their 
status as protected people, subject to payment of 
the fixed poll-tax^. In other words, the Caliph 
renounced his right to treat Alexandria and the 
other places as the lawful prize of war and their 
inhabitants as slaves at the mercy of their con- 
querors. There seems to have been a strong desire 
on the part of some of 'Amr s forces both to divide 
the city of Alexandria and to remain there : It Is 

says (vol. ii. p. 507) that 'it was conquered by Kharijah ibn Hu- 
dhafah/ and that ' its inhabitants helped the Romans against *Amr ' : 
where the first statement relates to the conquest, the second to the 
rebellion. Makrizi cites earlier writers for the fact that * Suntais, 
Masil, and Bilhait (BalMb) fought for the Romans against the 
Arabs,' which tells one nothing; but Suyuti's language removes 
all doubt : ' The villages of Bilhait, Al Khais, Suntais, and Kartasa 
rebelled, and the captives taken thence were sent to Medina and 
elsewhere : but Omar (Othman) sent them back and made all the 
Copts a protected people, including Alexandria and the rebel 
villages! These words could have no meaning except in relation 
to Manuel's revolt, although it is certain that the Arab historians 
transposed the record which they found, and mistakenly inserted 
it in the narrative of the first capture of Alexandria. The whole 
story that Alexandria was taken in the first instance by force arises 
from similar confusion. A certairi amount of this confusion may 
be reduced to order by criticism, but some of it is past all remedy. 
^ One now sees the true meaning of Yahya ibn Aiyiib and 
Khalid ibn Hamid when they say that all Egypt except Alexandria 
was occupied by treaty, and though the three villages named fought 
for the Romans, *yet Omar (Othman) decreed that they and 
Alexandria were to be treated like the rest of the country.' The 
reference is to the rebellion of Manuel, and not to the first invasion 
of Egypt by the Arabs. 



486 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

even said that *Amr himself wished to fix his abode 
in the sea-side capital. But any such intention, now 
as before, was repressed by the Caliph. Moreover, 
*Amr was only allowed to stay for one month in 
Alexandria, after which he handed it over to 
'Abdallah ibn Sa d. 

One characteristic anecdote must not be passed 
over in silence. After the recapture of Alexandria, 
the Copts of the various Delta villages which had 
been ruthlessly plundered by the Roman army, 
came to 'Amr and complained that while they had 
stood loyal to the Arabs as bound under treaty, 
they had not received the protection to which under 
the same treaty they were entitled, and in con- 
sequence they had suffered severely. The justice 
of this remonstrance is obvious : but it is not every 
victorious general whose conscience would be 
troubled by such a protest. Of *Amr, however, it 
is recorded that he was struck with remorse, and 
exclaimed : ' Would that I had encountered the 
Romans as soon as they issued forth from Alex- 
andria ! ' What is more, he at once ordered full 
compensation to be paid to the Copts for all their 
losses. This frank admission of responsibility and 
frank restitution prove at once the excellence of 
*Amr's principles of government and the nobility 
of his nature. 

But these very virtues were regarded as vices by 
the jaundiced eye of the Caliph. He was not blind 
to the supreme military talent of the conqueror, 
and so offered to reward his service by giving 
him the post of commander-in-chief of the army, 
while the unscrupulous 'Abdallah was to be retained 
as controller of the taxes and governor-general. 
Such an offer could only meet with contemptuous 



Conclusion 489 

rejection ; and *Amr s resentment of the mockery- 
is well preserved in his caustic remark, * I should 
be like a man holding a cow by the horns while 
another milked her.' But he had served the 
Caliph s turn in crushing the rebellion, and was no 
longer wanted. What the Caliph required was a 
man to wring money out of the Egyptians, and the 
man for that purpose was 'Abdallah ^ 'Amr 
accordingly quitted the country. 

Here then the story of the Arab conquest may 
fitly close. The suppression of Manuel's revolt and 
the recapture of Alexandria by the Arabs mark the 
definitive establishment of Muslim dominion upon 
the Nile valley. It is true that nine years later 
the Emperor Constans fitted out a second armada, 
which he destined for the recovery of Egypt. But 
it was too late. By this time the Arabs had learned 
something of seamanship; and their fleet, though 
inferior in numbers and fighting capacity, so baffled 
the Roman force that the expedition never efi*ected 
a landing in Egypt. Its failure in battle was turned 
to disaster by storm : the broken remnant of the 
great fleet was scattered and driven over the seas. 
From that moment the Muslim power was not 
again seriously menaced, although the coast towns 
long continued subject to isolated and fruitless raids 
on the part of Byzantine sailors or pirates. 

It might perhaps be interesting to follow out the 
social and other changes which resulted from the 
conquest; to trace the rapid decay of Graeco- 

^ Severus says of him : ' He loved money and collected treasure 
for himself in Egypt. He was the first to build the divan at Misr, 
and he ordered that all the taxes should be collected there ' (Brit. 
Mus. MS., p. 108, 1. 20). He associates with his government also 
a terrible famine — the worst since the days of Claudius. 



490 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Roman culture and the slow growth of a new 
Saracenic civilization ; and to distinguish those 
unyielding elements of old Egyptian life and thought 
which no transmutation of society could alter. One 
might show how the old classical learning strove 
in vain to maintain its position in the fallen city 
of Alexandria, but was dispossessed by slow degrees 
and finally banished to the cells and convents of 
the desert ; where it lingered in inanition till the 
Coptic language itself dwindled and disappeared. 
One might study the process by which the use of 
Arabic spread over the country, finding its first 
expression in the coinage late in the seventh century 
and then adopted in the public offices and public 
documents^, gaining upon the Coptic and driving 
out the use of Greek in common speech, save for 
some few words which took Arabic shape or those 
terms and phrases which remain as fossils to this 
day embedded in Coptic literature. One might also 
sketch the decline of those great and splendid cities 
which the Romans had left in Egypt : for Alexandria, 
though first among the cities of the East, if not of 
the world, was only one among many which reached 
from Syene to the Mediterranean 2. One would find 

^ Suyuti seems to say that Arabic coins were first struck in 
A.H. 75 and that Arabic was first introduced into the divans between 
A.H. 86 and 90 {Husn al Muhddarah, vol. ii. p. 226 and p. 8). 

^ For example, Antinoe (Ansina) was built on a scale of great 
splendour. It was on plan a long quadrilateral divided by a great 
main street, which was intersected by three principal cross-streets. 
These streets were all colonnaded, as at Alexandria, and statues 
adorned the cross-ways. At the harbour on the Nile a triumphal 
arch with three gateways was reared on Corinthian pillars, with 
equestrian statues on each side. Outside the town were baths, 
circus, and gymnasium. See Gregorovius* The Emperor Hadrian^ 
P- 357. 



Conclusion 491 

that temples and palaces were suffered to fall into 
ruins ; that precious marbles were quarried for 
building or burned for lime; that bronze statues 
were melted down and turned into coin or domestic 
vessels ; and yet that, through all the melancholy- 
history of decadence and destruction, certain forms 
and traditions of classical art were kept alive by 
Coptic craftsmen, and that from these traditions, 
moulded afresh by the Arab spirit, there sprang a 
new school of art and architecture, with schemes 
of decoration from which all suggestion of the human 
form was banished, but which achieved results as 
remarkable for originality as for grace and beauty 
and splendour. But a great deal has already been 
done towards tracing the descent of Saracenic from 
Byzantine art ^ ; and in any case researches of this 
kind lie beyond the limits of the present work. 

So too of the Coptic race and religion. It has 
already been shown how powerful were the forces 
tending to drive the Copts into complete social and 
religious union with Islam : and few things are 
stranger in history than the absolute absorption 
of the one part of the Copts and the stubborn 
refusal of the other part to renounce their ancestral 
customs and their religion — a refusal which has 
stood the test not only of the severest persecution, 
under which sufferers may be sustained by fire of 
enthusiasm, but also of that long dull wearing 
pressure of a daily life in which a sense of sub- 
jection, a consciousness of inferiority, was ever 
present. Of course the survival of Christianity was 
largely due to the influence of the monasteries, and 
their security was due in some degree to their re- 

^See Prof. Lane-Poole's Art of the Saracens in Egypt, and 
M. Gayet's L Art Copte. 



492 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

moteness in desert or mountain fastness. Yet few 
passages in the annals of Egypt are more agreeable 
reading than those which tell of the extremely 
friendly relations which prevailed between some 
of the Coptic abbots and the Caliphs, and the 
delight which the latter took in visiting picturesque 
and pleasant convents^. But studies of this kind 
belong to a later period, and here must be left alone. 

It might be thought perhaps that one ought at 
least to follow out the fortunes of the conqueror 
of Egypt. This would be an easy task : for in 
coming to the time of settled Arab government 
one emerges from the dark labyrinth of controversy 
and contradiction into the open light of history. But 
the part which 'Amr played in the troubled politics 
of Islam after his dismissal from Egypt ; the story 
of Othmans murder; the contest between 'All and 
Mu awiah ; *Amr s victorious march into Egypt and 
his reinstatement as governor — all this is written 
in the chronicles of the caliphate, which have been 
long accessible to the reader. 

It was in Rabi' I of a.h. 38 (Aug.-Sept. 658) 
that *Amr entered upon his second governorship. 
He soon pacified the country, and after rewarding 
his army entered on the enjoyment of the revenues, 
in the disposal of which Mu awlah left him unfettered 
discretion. The curious episode of the arbitration 
between the rival claims of 'All and Mu awiah 

^ See e.g. Abu Salih, pp. 149-50, 312-3. A somewhat 
curious glimpse of the friendly relations subsisting between Copts 
and Arabs is given in a MS. catalogued by Zoega {Cat. Codd. 
Copt. p. 89). There a Copt of the Thebaid is mentioned, one 
John, son of Mark, a deacon, ' who lived with the Ishmaelites and 
Elamites ; for he was a trader in wares relating to women's apparel 
or adornment.' This was soon after the conquest, in the caliphate 
of Othman. 



Conclusion 493 

recalled him for a short space from Egypt, and 
upon his return he had a narrow escape of being 
assassinated. A conspiracy having been formed 
to put to death the three great leaders of Islam — 
'Ali, Mu*awiah, and 'Amr— one Yazid was told off 
to murder *Amr while he was leading the Friday 
prayers at the mosque. On the day destined for 
the deed it so happened that *Amr was somewhat 
unwell, and he deputed the well-known general 
Kharijah ibn Hudhafah to take his place. Unaware 
of the change, the assassin plunged his dagger into 
Khirijah. When confronted with the governor 
Yazid said boldly, ' By God, it was you I wanted." 
* But God wanted Kharijah,* said *Amr. 

On January 3, 662, the Patriarch Benjamin passed 
away after a long period of illness and infirmity. He 
had been Archbishop of Alexandria for the space 
of thirty-nine years — a strange and stormy epoch, 
rich in great events, stirred with the adventure of 
nations, as race met race and creed encountered 
creed in combat for the dominion of souls and 
for the empire of the East. Benjamin, elected 
under Roman rule, had seen the Persians under 
Chosroes take possession of Egypt and of almost 
the whole realm of the Caesars. He had seen the 
grandly victorious campaigns of Heraclius ending 
in the recall of the Persians from the Nile valley ; 
and with the return of the Roman armies he had 
seen the arrival of Cyrus, before whose persecution 
he fled into the desert, there to remain for thirteen 
years till the era of Roman dominion was closed 
for ever. Above all he had seen a new power 
and a new religion issue from the wastes of Arabia, 
challenging Magian and Christian alike, sweeping 
in conquest over Syria, Persia, and Egypt. After 



494 ^^^ Arab Conquest of Egypt 

all the wars and revolutions he had witnessed, he 
was able to leave his Church in comparative peace 
under the rule of the conquering Muslims and their 
great chieftain *Amr ibn al 'Asi. 

' Amr survived him almost exactly two years. The 
Berbers of Pentapolis had been causing continual 
trouble, and from 66 1 to 663 *Amr had sent more 
than one expedition against them. When at the 
end of 663 his lieutenants returned in triumph, they 
found 'Amr at Fustat in his last illness. It is related 
that when he lay dying, Ibn 'Abbas went to *Amr 
and said : ' You have often remarked that you would 
like to find an intelligent man at the point of death, 
and to ask what his feelings were. Now I ask you 
that question.' *Amr replied : * I feel as if the 
heaven lay close upon the earth, and I between 
the two, breathing as through the eye of a needle.' 
When his son *Abdallah entered the room, 'Amr 
pointed to a chest and said, ' That is for you.' 
* I have no need,' said 'Abdallah. ' Take it/ said 
*Amr ; ' it is full of money ' : but ' Abdallah still 
refused \ The last words of 'Amr are recorded 
as follows : ' Almighty God, thou hast commanded, 
and I have disobeyed ; thou hast forbidden, and 
I have transgressed. I am not innocent enough 
to deserve thy pardon, nor have I strength to 
prevail against thy will.' He died on Yiim al Fitr 
A.H. 43, or January 6, 664, at the age of about 
seventy 2. ' Abdallah carried his body to the place 

^ The Muslim writers make 'Abdallah's refusal prompted by the 
fear that 'Amr's wealth was ill-gotten. This is a most dishonouring 
accusation against both. There is no evidence that 'Amr got 
wealth by ill means, or that his son had any such thought. Surely 
in his natural grief, at his father's death-bed, the last thing 'Abdallah 
would care about is his money. 

^ See Appendix E, ' On the age of 'Amr.' 



Conclusion 495 

of prayer and prayed over it, his prayer being 
followed by all who were present. 

*Amr was buried at the foot of the Mukattam 
Hills, *near the entrance to the ravine.' But the 
place of his grave has been clean forgotten. For 
centuries the mountains have been scarped and 
quarried, till even the landmark of the ravine has 
so long disappeared that tradition itself has sunk 
into silence. The new capital of Fustat which *Amr 
founded, and which rose later to great magnificence, 
has long since been levelled with the dust, leaving 
no vestige but the mosque which bears 'Amr s name, 
and which still marks at least the site of his original 
building. Close by in Dair Abu 's Saifain and in 
Kasr ash Shama churches are still standing which 
date their foundation, if not their structure, back to 
the Roman Empire. The very walls of Babylon, 
which were nearly complete some twenty years ago, 
still remain in places, and probably the whole circuit 
could be revealed to a great depth, like the gateway, 
by excavation. But one may search the desolate 
plain and the fringe of the mountains in vain for 
any stone to mark the grave of 'Amr : for the 
Muslims have neither memorial nor remembrance 
of the place where the conqueror of Egypt is 
buried. 



APPENDIX A 
ON THE RELIC CALLED THE HOLY ROOD 

The story of the finding of the cross in May, 328, is well 
known, and it is certain that the wood found by the 
Empress Helena was preserved for some centuries. Socrates 
(Eccl. Hist. lib. i. xvii) says that Helena put one portion in 
a silver chest and left it at Jerusalem, sending the other 
portion to the Emperor. The evidence for the subsequent 
history of the cross is fairly complete and continuous. 

To begin with the fourth century. In the paper on the 
Churches of Constantine at Jerusalem^ in vol. i of the 
Palestine Pilgrims Text Society's publications (pp. i'^,-'^^ 
there is a quotation from the Breviary showing that in the 
basilica of Constantine was an altar of silver and gold 
supported on nine columns, and that the cross was adorned 
with gold and gems. Theodosius {De Terra Sancta) speaks 
also of ' the chamber wherein is the Cross of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The Cross itself is adorned with gold and gems, 
the open sky being above and a latticed railing of gold 
round it.' So too St. Silvia of Aquitania (circa 385 A.D.) 
— who, by the way, mentions the use of incense at the 
church of the Resurrection — records the Good Friday 
ceremony, which she witnessed, as follows : ' Then is brought 
a silver-gilt casket, in which is the holy wood of the Cross : 
it is opened, and, its contents being taken out, the wood of 
the Cross and also its inscription are placed on the Table.' 
Then all the people come and kiss the cross (id., ib., 

P- ^3)- 

Antoninus Martyr visited the Holy Places circa ^6^ A.D., 
and there saw the relic still in the atrium of the basilica of 
Constantine, where it was kept in a shrine or chamber. He 
says nothing about the case, but he mentions the sponge 
and the reed, which Nicetas is said to have rescued later — 
in the seventh century. 



Appendix A /^^gj 

We have seen that in 615 the rood was taken by the 
Persians, when they captured Jerusalem, and sent with other 
spoil to Chosroes ; that it was recovered by Heraclius in 
628, taken to Constantinople that winter, restored to its 
place in the church of Constantine with great pomp in 629, 
and again sent to Constantinople a few years later, c. 636, 
to save it from falling into the hands of the conquering 
Muslims. 

It was seen at Constantinople about the year 670 by the 
pilgrim Arculfus, who had been to Jerusalem and had 
beheld the great churches just as they were left after 
their reinstatement by Modestus, — an interesting piece of 
evidence, because it shows how tolerantly the Christian 
churches were treated by the Muslims towards the end of 
the seventh century. But of the cross Arculfus says that 
it was kept at St. Sophia's in a wooden case, which rested 
in a large and very beautiful aumbry or shrine. On three 
consecutive days in the year, i.e. Maundy Thursday, Good 
Friday, and Easter Eve, the reliquary was placed on 
a golden altar. On the first day the Emperor and the 
army entered and kissed the cross — all in order of rank. 
On the next day the Queen with her ladies and other noble 
women kissed the cross. On the third day the Patriarch 
and clergy went through the same ceremony, with the same 
regard to precedence. The reliquary was then closed and 
carried back to its aumbry (id., vol. ii. pp. S^-^)- 

In the tenth century Porphyrogenitus gives a similar 
account of the cross, though apparently the chest contain- 
ing it was then kept in a different part of the cathedral. 
There is some obscurity regarding the ultimate fate of this 
and of other relics kept at St. Sophia ; but the subject is 
exhaustively treated in Messrs. Lethaby and Swainson's 
admirable work, S. Sophia^ Constantinople, pp. 92, 93, 97 
seq., &c. 



Kk 



498 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

APPENDIX B 

ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERSIAN 
CONQUEST 

It may be doubted whether it is possible at present to 
establish with finality the dates connected with the Persian 
conquest of Egypt. Some recent writers tend to put the 
event later than 616 A.D., and Gelzer, who has written 
a learned note on the subject (Leontios von Neapolis, p. 151), 
argues that Alexandria cannot have fallen before 619. In 
this he dissents from Von Gutschmid, who places it a year 
or two earlier. 

The evidence cited by Gelzer is as follows. Theophanes 
makes the conquest take place in 616. Barhebraeus gives 
the seventh year of Heraclius, following the Patriarch 
Michael, who says (Jerusalem edition, p. ^^93) that the 
Shah-Waraz invaded Egypt in the seventh year of Heraclius. 
The conquest of Egypt is put by Isidore (Roncalli, Chron. 
Min, ii. 461) in 616, while Tabari records that the keys of 
Alexandria were delivered to Chosroes in the twenty-eighth 
year of his reign, i.e. 617-8 ; ' thus giving the date handed 
down by Michael.' 

I may here remark that the seventh year of Heraclius 
= October, 616 — October, 617, whereas the twenty-eighth 
of Chosroes falls about evenly between 617 and 618, and no 
part of it can fall in 616 : so that the agreement between 
Michael and Tabari is not very obvious. Further, Bar- 
hebraeus (or Abu 1 Faraj) elsewhere (Hist. Dyn.^ ed. 
Pococke, p. 99) clearly assigns the capture of Jerusalem by 
the Persians to the fifth year of Heraclius, and so, in this 
as in many points, is inconsistent. 

Gelzer goes on to say that Von Gutschmid has shown 
with great acuteness (Kleine Schriften., iii. 473 seq.) that 
the Persian invasion cannot have taken place before 617, 
because Sy7dan authorities prove that the visit of Athana- 
sitis of Antioch to the Monophysite Patriarch Anastasius of 



Appendix B 499 

Alexandria took place in 616, whereas the Patriarch in office 
when the Persians entered Alexandria was Andronicus. 
Moreover, as Barhebraeus shows, the real promoter and 
author of the union was Nicetas, who fled with John the 
Almoner at the approach of the Persians. Von Gutschmid 
puts the death of Anastasius on December 18, 616. Andro- 
nicus, his immediate successor, stayed on and was able to 
reside (as I have shown in the text) within the city. * From 
this,' says Gelzer, ' it clearly follows that at least at the 
beginning of the patriarchate of Andronicus (end of 616) 
Alexandria was still in the possession of the Greeks. 
Accordingly the earliest date for the Persian conquest must 
be the summer of 617, as Von Gutschmid supposes.' 

On the whole I think Von Gutschmid's dates are correct, 
though not free from difficulty. To begin with, it is by no 
means certain that the year given by the Syrian authorities 
is rightly identified as 616; because, while they generally 
reckon by the Greek or Seleucid era, they often differ by 
a year from the ordinary calculation of that era, inasmuch 
as they start from 311 B.C. instead of 312 {Tresor de 
Chronologie, col. ofii). It is therefore possible that Syrian 
evidence is rather in favour of 615 than 616, in which case 
it would be in agreement with the Chronicon Orientale, 
which alleges that the visit of Athanasius to Egypt took 
place in the same year in which Jerusalem was stormed by 
the Persians. Then, again, the Egyptian writer Severus of 
Ushmunain dates the death of the Coptic Patriarch 
Anastasius on 1% Khoiak (December 18) in the year 330 of 
Diocletian. This Renaudot wrongly identifies with 614, 
because Khoiak falls in 613. These statements are hope- 
lessly incompatible : but it is impossible at least to place 
the capture of Jerusalem in 613. 

There are, however^ some other Syrian authorities whose 
evidence must be cited. For it is well known, though not 
mentioned by Gelzer, that there exist Syriac biblical MSS. 
which are dated in the seventh century, and which were 
writen at the Ennaton monastery near Alexandria by 
Thomas of Harkel and Paul of Telia, under the direct 



500 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

orders of the Patriarch Anastasius, and in direct connexion 
with his visit to Egypt. These MSS. were part of a sys- 
tematic revision of the Syriac text by collation of the Greek 
version of Philoxenus ; the dates they bear are of capital 
importance. 

'Thomas of Harkel is known to have completed his 
version of the New Testament into Syriac in 927 of the 
Greek era^.' Now this 927, unless equivalent to the 
ordinary 9:^6, would run from October^ 615, to October, 616. 
There is also another Syro-Hexaplar MS. in the British 
Museum (Add. MSS. 144,376), which is subscribed as com- 
pleted in the same year 615-6. 

The MS. of the Third Book of Kings is dated Shabat, 
937, which = February, 616. That of the Fourth Book of 
Kings has a subscription which represents both Paul and 
Athanasius as dwelling at Alexandria in g28, which runs 
from October, 616, to October, 617, thus fixing the visit of the 
Syrian Patriarch to the autumn of 616. In another Syro- 
Hexaplar MS. at Milan we find the date of completion 
given as 9i^8 or 616-7. 

In these MSS., then, there is a record of peaceable study 
at the Ennaton Monastery extending over the two years 
^'^5-1 aiid incidentally fixing the visit of the Syrian 
Patriarch in October, 616, because his host the Coptic 
Patriarch died in December of the same year. The dates 
here are reckoned according to the ordinary calculation of 
the Greek era. But if we are to regard them as based on 
the special Syrian computation of that era, the result will 
be to place the visit in 615-6, and the record of work 
from 614-6. In this latter case we fall into agreement 
with Barhebraeus, who states (Chron. Eccles. t. i. 267-9) that 
^Athanasius went to Alexandria, where Anastasius was 
Patriarch, and entered into union with him. This union 
between our (Syrian) Church and the Church of Egypt was 
in the year of the Greeks 927,' i.e. October, 615 — October, 
616, as Barhebraeus does not follow the Syrian variation of 
the era. There is no way of reconciling these discrepancies 

■^ See Diet. Christ. Biog.^ s. v. Thomas of Harkel and Paul of Telia. 



Appendix B 501 

otherwise than by reference to a different method of cal- 
culating the era: and as it was especially the Syrians of 
Babylonia who advanced the Greek era by a year, there 
is nothing improbable in ascribing that method to Thomas 
of Harkel and Paul of Telia. In that case we have an 
agreement between the Chronicon Orientate^ the biblical 
MSS., and Abu '1 Faraj, which practically dates the union of 
the two Churches in October, 615. This seems a fair and 
a reasonable solution. 

I think it would be still necessary to assign the death of 
the Coptic Patriarch to Dec. 18, 616, not to 615; and for 
this reason, that there is no other way of making the reign of 
Andronicus, his successor, fit in with the known dates for its 
duration and for its termination. For the duration is fixed 
to a few days over six years ending 8 Tubah, or 3 January. 
But given some 3 January as the date for the death of 
Andronicus and for the beginning of Benjamin's patriarchate, 
no other year but 623 will fulfil the necessary conditions. 
For on the one hand it is clear that Andronicus saw the 
beginning of the Persian invasion, which I put late in 616 ; 
and on the other hand it is clear that the same Patriarch 
saw the beginning of Islam. For the Chronicon Orientale, 
while giving Andronicus' date as 611 to 617, yet adds, * In 
his time the power of the Muslims had its rise,' i.e. July, 
622, and this is corroborated by Makin, who places the 
election of Benjamin in the first year of the Hijra, 623-3. 
Abu Salih's testimony is equally explicit ; for he records 
that Andronicus was Patriarch ' at the first appearance of 
the Muslims in the twelfth year of Heraclius' (ed. Evetts 
and Butler, p. 231). This concurrence of evidence for 
dating the enthronement of Benjamin in January, 623, is 
very strong — indeed, almost irresistible. Le Quien follows 
the dates of Severus, who makes Andronicus' term of office 
from 614 to 620 ; while Echellensis claims greater accuracy 
for his scheme, in which Andronicus reigns from 619 to 
622. 

Now if, as seems proved, Andronicus died about Jan. 3, 
623; and reigned for just over six years, starting Dec. 18, 



502 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

it follows that his reign began in 6i5, and that Anastasius 
died on Dec. i8, 6i6. This date agrees with that fixed by 
Von Gutschmid {Kleine Schriften, ii. pp. 471-4). 

The discussion has taken us somewhat far from the 
biblical MSS. written at the Ennaton Monastery, but it is 
necessary to go back to them for a moment. 

These MSS. show that (i) Thomas of Harkel was working 
at the translation for at least two years before the visit of 
the Syrian Patriarch. 

(3) The visit itself may well be assigned to October, 615. 

(3) Paul of Telia continued at work at least three months 
after the visit, till January, 6t6. 

A difficulty is raised by the fact that Athanasius is 
loosely stated to have gone with five other Syrian bishops, 
whereas the language of Barhebraeus shows most decisively 
that Thomas of Harkel was driven from his diocese of 
Mabug, and fled to Egypt for refuge. That Thomas and 
Paul were present during the visit need not be doubted, nor 
that three other bishops either travelled with Athanasius, or 
were driven to Egypt by the Persian occupation of Pales- 
tine. We have the express statement of John Moschus 
that many bishops were so driven to Egypt. But it is far 
more likely that the very residence of these Syrian scholars 
at Alexandria, and their consequent intimacy with the 
Coptic Patriarch prior to the Patriarch of Antioch's visit, 
settled all the preliminaries for that formal union which 
was so quickly ratified after the actual meeting of the two 
Patriarchs. 

There is one further piece of evidence furnished by these 
MSS. It is highly significant that of the other books of 
the Bible attributed to Paul of Telia, not one is dated, the 
last date being, as I have shown, the very beginning of 
616. It does not seem reasonable to argue that the work 
must nevertheless have been done in the same monastery 
* of the Antonians^' under the same conditions, and that 
therefore the Persian invasion must be put later than 61 5. 

^ Strangely called ' Of the Antonines ' by the Did. Christ. Biog. Of 
course it means that the monks followed the rule of St. Anthony. 



Appendix B 503 

On the contrary, these Syrian scholars, who had seen or 
heard of the great havoc wrought in their own country by 
the Persians, would naturally take alarm at the first news 
of the Persian advance into Egypt ; and it is highly 
probable that in the summer of 616 they fled oversea 
accompanied by the monks of the Ennaton and their more 
precious possessions, including the Greek MSS. of the 
Scriptures. But without recourse to this hypothesis, there 
is another possible explanation, consistent with the con- 
tinuance of the work in Egypt. 

This brings us to a point which has been singularly over- 
looked, and which therefore requires some emphasis. It is 
the almost invariable custom of writers upon this period to 
speak of the Persian conquest as a single incident to be 
dated in a single year ; in other words, they fail to dis- 
tinguish betwee7i the invasion of Egypt and the fall of 
Alexandria. These two events must be at least a year 
apart, and there is not the smallest doubt that ancient 
writers sometimes fasten their date upon the one event and 
sometimes upon the other ; and this fact accounts for much 
of the prevalent confusion. 

That the Persians were not advancing on Egypt early in 
616 may be regarded as proved. Moreover, even were 
they ready for a fresh campaign so soon after the fall of 
Jerusalem, it is more probable that they would not cross 
the desert in the summer. We may therefore conclude 
that the advance began in the autumn of 616, and that the 
army took Pelusium, where they sacked the monasteries, 
before the end of that year. They had then to march to 
Memphis, to capture the formidable fortress of Babylon, 
and to fight their way down the western branch of the Nile 
past Nikiou (as we know they did) to Alexandria. We 
know also that they spent a long time besieging the city 
before it was delivered over to them by treachery. All 
this must have taken at least a year. Consequently it is 
impossible on any theory of dates to place the capture of 
Alexandria before the end of the year 617 or the beginning 
of 618. 



504 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

It is thus easy to suppose that the Syrian scholars 
continued their work at the Ennaton Monastery till the 
Persian forces were approaching, and then took refuge in 
the city, whence escape by sea was always open. They 
would thus have gained another two years, which would 
probably have sufficed to finish their labours. 

So much then for the Syrian authorities. But it will 
be noticed that the argument which has brought us to 
the winter of 617-8 as the earliest date for the fall of 
Alexandria brings us into precise agreement with the date 
given by Tabari. It also, though proceeding on different 
and partly discordant data, brings us into near agreement 
with Von Gutschmid's conclusions, viz. that in December, 
616, 'Alexandria was still in the possession of the Greeks, 
and that the earliest date of the Persian conquest ' (if by 
that he means the capture of Alexandria) 'must be the 
summer of 617.' Tabari in saying that the keys of Alex- 
andria were not sent to Chosroes before the winter, goes 
a little beyond this statement, and I agree with him. 
Briefly then the dates may be set out thus : — 
(i) Capture of Jerusalem .... End of May, 615, 
{%) Visit of Athanasius to Alexandria October, 615. 

(3) Persian advance into Egypt . . Autumn, 616. 

(4) Death of Coptic Patriarch . . . Dec. 18,616. 

(5) Capture of Babylon Spring, 617. 

(6) Capture of Alexandria .... End of 61 7. 

(7) Subjugationof the whole of Egypt 618. 

I may add that the conquest of Upper Egypt cannot 
have been completed much before the winter of 618, 
because we know from a dated Coptic papyrus that 
Arsinoe, or Fayum, was still under Roman rule on June 9, 
618 {Corpus Papyrorum Raineri^ vol. ii, Koptische Texte^ 
ed. J. Krall, i bd. p. li). But, broadly speaking, this table 
shows that from the capture of Jerusalem to the complete 
occupation of Egypt there is a period of three years, exactly 
as recorded by Abu '1 Faraj (ed. Pococke, I.e.). 

This scheme now enables one to place John the Al- 
moner's mission of relief to Jerusalem in the winter of 



Appendix B 505 

615-6; for the envoys clearly went by land, and they 
certainly could not have gone while the Persian armies 
were on their way to Egypt. The flight of John with 
Nicetas will naturally fall in the autumn of- 616, if they 
fled at the news of the Persian invasion, though Leontius' 
words rather suggest that they escaped only a short time 
before the surrender of Alexandria, i. e. a year later. 
Above all, this scheme will fit in with the chronology of 
the Arab writers both for the lives of the Patriarchs and 
for the period of the Persian occupation. This period, as 
Gelzer rightly remarks, is ten years. 

For the Coptic Patriarchs I give the following dates : — 

(i) Anastasius . from June, 604, to Dec. 18, 616. 

{%) Andronicus . „ Dec. 616, „ Jan. 3, 6i'>^. 

(3) Benjamin . „ Jan. 623, „ Jan. 3, 662. 
And for the Melkite Patriarchs : — 

(i) Theodore, killed in 609. 

(2) John the Almoner from 609 to 616 or 617. 

(3) George ... „ 621 „ 630 or 631. 

(4) Cyrus .... ,,631 „ 642. 

Now if with Gelzer, on the single authority of Thomas 
Presbyter, the union of the Syrian and Egyptian Churches 
be put in 618, we have to dislocate the whole scheme of 
the succession of the Coptic Patriarchs, and above all to 
put Benjamin's enthronement at least as late as 625 ; 
whereas the Egyptian writers insist that his pontificate 
began in 622-3, the year of the rise of Mohammed. For 
me that correspondence is decisive, even if it stood alone, 
to determine the date of Benjamin ; but it would be easy to 
multiply evidence from Egyptian sources to refute 625. 

Then as to the ten years' occupation. Gelzer would 
make this end in 629, i.e. at least a year after the con- 
clusion of peace between Heraclius and Siroes. Now there 
are three strong reasons against this : (i) the whole aim of 
Heraclius' strategy in 622 and the following years was to 
relieve the Persian pressure on his capital and on Egypt ; 
and it is, if not proved, yet highly probable, that Egypt 
was evacuated by reason of this pressure even as early as 



5o6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the spring of 61"] — a little over ten years from the invasion, 
as I contend ; (2) even if this were not so, Sebeos distinctly 
records that Siroes, in the treaty of February, 628, agreed at 
once to evacuate all the Roman possessions, and did 
evacuate them ; (3) Mohammed's envoys were sent out 
to the different rulers in the summer or autumn of 627 at 
latest, as Tabari shows, because he represents Chosroes' 
messengers to Yaman as detained there for some months 
before the news came of the king's death, which occurred 
in February, 628 ; and it is beyond question that when 
Mohammed sent to Egypt, that country was recovered to 
the Empire and ruled by Heraclius' viceroy, ' Al Mukaukas,' 
as he is wrongly styled. 

Gelzer's appeal to Nicephorus will not support his date 
of 629. Nicephorus' words are : ' Sarbaros after hearing 
of the death of Chosroes, Siroes, Kaboes, and Hormisdas, 
returned from the country of the Romans ' ; and ' when 
peace was ratified, Sarbaros gave back Egypt and all the 
East to the Romans, removing the Persian garrisons, and 
he sent the life-giving cross to the Emperor.' But the 
Shah-Waraz did not become king by agreement with Hera- 
clius till at least the end of 629 (Journal A siatique^ 1866, 
p. 220), whereas it is certain that Heraclius recovered the 
cross in 628. Moreover, Nicephorus himself, after record- 
ing certain other events, goes on to say that subsequently 
the cross was taken by Heraclius to Jerusalem, then again 
returned to Constantinople, where the Patriarch Sergius 
received it ; ' and it was in the 2nd Indiction that these 
things happened,' i.e. 629! If this incoherent story proved 
anything, it would be that Egypt was evacuated before the 
recovery of the cross, and therefore before September, 628 ; 
but it proves nothing except that Nicephorus is an incom- 
petent witness. 

The fact is that the ten years of the occupation may 
count from the entry of the Persians into Egypt, or from 
the capture of Alexandria, or from the completion of the 
conquest of Egypt up to Syene ; and the length of the 
period must of course depend on the starting-point. 



Appendix B 507 

I have endeavoured in this note to show that much of 
the confusion arises from the faihire to distinguish between 
the invasion of Egypt and the conquest of Egypt, which 
are neither synonymous nor synchronous. One other 
source of confusion is the failure to distinguish between the 
year Anno Domini (beginning January i) and the Greek 
year of Alexander's era (beginning September i), which 
spreads over part of two years of our reckoning. Further, 
there is the failure to take into account the Syrian reckon- 
ing of the Greek era, which sometimes differs from the 
ordinary reckoning by one year, and which begins the year 
in October instead of September. A final source of error 
may be mentioned — the attempt to found the chronology 
on too narrow a basis. This may be done in two ways, by 
unduly narrowing either the period or the sources of evi- 
dence. It will not answer to discuss the dates of a period 
of ten or twelve years and to settle them without regard 
to the consequences, i. e. without facing the bearing of those 
dates on previous or subsequent chronology, and ascer- 
taining whether the inevitable deductions will stand criti- 
cism. But it should also be remembered that, in dealing 
with these events of the seventh century, the sources of 
history are many and various. There are Greeks Armenian, 
Syrian, Arab, and Egyptian writers who have something 
to say ; and it is not legitimate to base any system of 
chronology upon the evidence of one or two sets of writers 
without due regard to the others. 

In making these remarks I am profoundly conscious of 
the difficulties besetting any attempt to reconcile authorities 
which are often really, as well as apparently, irreconcilable. 
But it may not be presumptuous to indicate some of the 
pitfalls which research must encounter. I would only add 
that in differing with Gelzer, I do so with all admiration 
for his learned and scholarly work. But while I am far 
from claiming that the scheme of chronology I have put 
forward is free from all difficulty, I may perhaps claim that 
it is broadly based, and reconciles a large number of very 
different and wholly independent authorities. 



5o8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

APPENDIX C 
ON THE IDENTITY OF ' AL MUKAUKAS ' 

(Revised and amended from a paper in the ' Proceedings of 
the Society of Biblical Archaeology!) 

There is in the history of Egypt no figure at once so 
familiar and so mysterious as that denoted by the Arabic 
•title Al Mukaukas, or Al Mukaukis. That the person in 
question played the leading part on the Roman side at 
the crisis of the Saracen conquest — that he was chiefly 
responsible for the surrender of Egypt — is agreed : but 
here all agreement ends. His personal identity, his name 
and nationality, the office he held, and the action he took, 
the very meaning of the title by which he is known — all 
these are questions debated, disputed, and answered in a 
fashion, but in such a fashion as to reveal the most hope- 
less discord of opinion. Nor is this discord to be wondered 
at ; for it is clear that from the earliest times the Arabic 
authorities themselves are completely bewildered on the 
subject. 

Among modern historians, Von Ranke {Weltgeschichte, 
V. i. 1^1 seq.) calls A! Mukaukas governor of Egypt and 
a Copt, but seems to doubt his historical character. De 
Goeje (' De Mokaukis van Egypte ' in the Atudes dediees 
a Leemans) remarks that the Arabic historians seem to have 
confused the Mukaukas in some points with Cyrus, the 
imperial Patriarch of Alexandria, although he was a different 
person and held a different office. Prof. Karabacek, in his 
article ' Der Mokaukis von Aegypten ' ( Mittheilungen aus 
der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer, vol. i. pp. 
i-ii), concludes that the proper name of the Mukaukas was 
George, son of Mina Parkabios, thus explaining the name 
1^9 or rather y^Ji given to his father by some of the 
authorities. Karabacek assigns to the Mukaukas the office 
of pagarch, and explains the title as the Arabic form of the 
Greek /uieyaux^s, which he assumes to have been an honorary 



Appendix C 509 

designation, analogous to hho^oTaros and the like commonly- 
found in seventh-century papyri. Mr. Milne in his note on 
' George the Mukaukis ' {Egypt under Roman Rule, p. 224) 
identifies the man with a George the Prefect mentioned 
by John of Nikiou, who is assumed to have been Prefect 
of Augustamnica (i. e. Athrib : see Hyvernat's Acies des 
Martyrs de Ij^gypte^ vol. i. p. 296), though Athrib is hardly 
' on the eastern frontier of Egypt,' as Mr. Milne's argument 
requires. Prof. Stanley Lane-Poole (Egypt in the Middle 
Ages, p. 6, note 2) leans to the fxeyavxris theory of the name, 
and adopts Mr. Milne's identification of the man with 
George the Prefect, in spite of the Arab traditions which 
make the Mukaukas 'governor of all Egypt, ruling from 
Alexandria.' He further accepts the conventional story 
which makes the Mukaukas a Copt. So Professor Bury 
speaks of him as ' the Coptic governor ' of Egypt (Later 
Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 270). The varying accounts of 
these writers are at best but partial and incomplete, because 
they have not grappled closely with the problem in its 
bearings on the history of the conquest, and so tested their 
theory against the various difficulties which its application 
must encounter. Moreover, Al Mukaukas is not the only 
person whose identity is disputed. Almost all the chief 
actors on the Roman or the Egyptian side in the war are 
equally shadowy personalities, and they are often confounded 
together. Hence to identify the Mukaukas is only half the 
problem. Other figures have at the same time to be 
examined, and their identity determined. But this is a 
necessity which, I believe, no writer has yet fully appre- 
ciated : so that one may say that the problem in its entirety 
has never yet been adequately stated. The fact is that 
confusion of names and persons permeates the whole history 
of the conquest to such a degree that only in writing, or 
attempting to write, that history does one realize the 
magnitude or the intricacy of the problem. 

I propose first of all to cite the evidence of the principal 
Arabic writers, and to see what material they furnish for 
stating or solving the questions at issue. 



5IO The Arab. Conquest of Egypt 

Balddhurt (born 806 A.D.) mentions the Mukaukas as 
having made peace with *Amr, and as siding with the 
Copts after Heraclius' disapproval of the treaty. In 
Manuel's rebellion some say that he sided with the Arabs, 
others that he was dead. Baladhuri gives no name to the 
Mukaukas. 

Tabari (839-923 A.D.) distinguishes the prince of 
Alexandria from the prince of Memphis : the latter was 
the Mukaukas, who was also prince of the Copts. The 
Mukaukas sent to Memphis an army under command of 
the Catkolicus, who was chief of all the bishops of the 
Christians^ and whose name was Ibn Mary am. 

Eutychius (born 876 A.D.) was a Melkite. He avers that 
Al Mukaukas was controller of the finances of Egypt in 
the name of Heraclius, a Jacobite at heart, though by pro- 
fession a Melkite, and that he had kept back the tribute 
due to the Emperor ever since the Persians had beleaguered 
Constantinople. No name is given to the Mukaukas, who 
is made to live till after the revolt of Manuel. 

The MS. of Severus of Ushmunain (? flor. early tenth 
century) is very important. His words are: 'When 
Heraclius had recovered his territories, he appointed 
governors in every place. To us in the land of Egypt 
Cyrus was sent to be governor and Patriarch together^ 
Of the ten years' persecution, the time of Benjamin's flight, 
he says : ' These were the years during which Heraclius 
and Al Mukaukas were ruling Egypt.' Again he says : 
' When the ten years of the reign of Heraclius and the 
government of Al Mukaukas were over.' He further de- 
scribes * the misbelieving governor, who was both Prefect 
and Patriarch of Alexandria.' Finally, Benjamin is made 
to speak of ^ the time of the persecution which befell me 
when Al Mukaukas drove me away'; and it is Severus who 
represents Benjamin as driven from his seat by the arrival 
of Cyrus. To Severus then Cyrus is the Mukaukas. 

There is now a gap of nearly two centuries till we come 
to Ibn al Athir (born 1160 A.D.), who mentions both Abu 
Maryam and Abu Maryam, the former Catholicus of 



Appendix C 511 

Memphis (notice the absurdity of this title), the latter 
a bishop. Both were sent by Al Mukaukas to attack 
*Amr, but parleyed with him, and brought terms which the 
Mukaukas rejected. The Mukaukas himself was in com- 
mand at the battle of Heliopolis, and later appears as 
governor of Alexandria during the siege. He made peace 
with *Amr, and was alive during Manuel's rebellion. 

Ibn al Athir is very confused as to the order of events in 
the early part of the conquest. 

Abil Sdlih wrote circa 1200 A.D. He testifies that 
' Mohammed sent Hatib ibn Abi Balta*ah to Al Mukaukas, 
governor of Alexandria' i.e. in A.H. 6, which began 
May 23, 61^]. After the recovery of Egypt, 'The country 
was placed by Heraclius under the government of George, 
son of Mina, the Mukaukas, u*syi.U \i^ ^\ ^js^. Again, of 
a monastery in Upper Egypt he says, ' It was here that 
Benjamin lived in concealment in the reign of the Roman 
Emperor Heraclius, who was a Chalcedonian, and while 
George, son of Mina, the Mukaukas, was ruling in Egypt, 
until the completion of the ten years, through fear of both 
of them, according to the warning of the angel.' The 
writer goes on to say that these were the ten years of the 
persecution suffered by the orthodox (i.e. Copts). But 
Abu Salih also quotes from the Book of Al Janah the state- 
ment that 'the bishop of the Romans at Misr and Alexandria 
was named Cyrus ' (p. ']'^. 

YdkiLt (born circa 1178 a.d.) further complicates matters. 
He says that the fortress of Babylon ' was commanded by 
Al Mandafur called Al *Uairij on behalf of Al Mukaukas 
ibn Karkab al Yundni ' (^^ij^^ ^y i^Oj son of Karkab, the 
Greek, ' whose usual residence was at Alexandria.' 

Makin (born circa 1205 A.D.) says that 'the governor 
of Egypt in the name of Heraclius was Al Mukaukas, who 
together with the chief men of the Copts made peace with 
*Anlr.' 

Ibn Khaldun (born 1332 A.D., flor. late fourteenth 
century) follows Ibn al Athir, but has his own confusions. 
He makes the Mukaukas a Copt. 



512 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Ibn Dukmdk (wrote circa 1400) speaks of * Al Mukaukas, 
the Roman, the Viceroy of Herach'us.' 

Makrizi (born 1365 A.D.) quotes Yazid ibn Abi Habib for 
the statement that 'the Mukaukas the Roman, being governor 
of Egypt, made peace with *Amr.' Ibn * Abd al Hakam is 
quoted as the authority for the survival of Al Mukaukas to 
the time of Manuel's rebellion. Ibn 'Abd al Hakam was 
an early writer (died 870 A.D.), whose work survives in MS., 
but he is a romancer as well as an historian, though often of 
value. Weil has quoted largely from him. 

Makrizi follows Yakut about Al 'Uairij, and in making 
the Mukaukas son of Karkab (or Karkat) the Greek. He 
says that the Copts had a bishop at Alexandria called Abii 
Mayamin ; that the Mukaukas made terms with the Arabs ; 
but that Heraclius repudiated the agreement, reproaching 
him with imitating the meanness and cowardice of the Copts. 
Of Cyrus he says that Heraclius, dj,jj^^l d^. J:»j^ M^ 
' made Firush {sic) Patriarch of Alexandria ' — a mistake for 
^j^, Wakidi (so called, romance of uncertain date) says that 
' the king of the Copts at that time was the Mukaukas, son 
of Ra il/ 

^Abu HMahdsin (born 1409) makes Benjamin the Coptic 
bishop of Alexandria, and states that ' the commander of 
Kasr ash Shama* was Al *Ughairij, who was subordinate to 
the authority of Al Mukaukas'; and two MSS. give the 
name of the Mukaukas as Juraih ibn Mina, Ii*a ^^.1 J>j>'i 
obviously a mistake for lu* ^>1 ^I^4> or George, son of 
Mina. Elsewhere, however, the same writer says that the 
fortress was ' commanded by Al Mandafur, called Al 
*Ughairij, on behalf of Al Mukaukas, son of Karkab al 
Yunani.' 

This author also cites Ibn Kathir's story (compiled from 
Ibn Ishak and others), that the Muslims on their entry into 
Egypt were met by Abu Maryam, the Catholicus of Egypt, 
and Abu Martam, the bishop ; and these two prelates are 
introduced at the building of Fustat. 

Suyutt (born 1445 A.D.) nearly agrees with the last 
writer. He states that the fortress was commanded by Al 



Appendix C 513 

Mandakill, called Al 'Araj, for the Mukaukas ibn Karkab 
al Y(inani : that the Mukaukas' usual residence was 
at Alexandria: that he made terms with *Amr, which 
Heraclius repudiated : and that ' the name of the Coptic 
bishop is Abu Mayamin.' 

This review of the chief Arabic authorities brings out 
their many discrepancies: but it is clear that there are 
three persons to be identified, viz. Al Mukaukas, Abu 
Maryam, and Al *Araj. I will take them in reverse order. 

(i) Al 'Araj\ Al 'Uairij\ or Al ''Ughairij, This name 
seems first to occur in Yakut (early thirteenth century) as 
the name of the commander of the fortress of Babylon, 
whose title was Al Mandafur, which may be a mistake for 
Al Mandatur, and so a transcription of the Byzantine 
IxavbcLTOdp, though the word does not seem to be elsewhere 
used as commander. Yakut is followed by Abu '1 Mahasin 
and by Suyuti, though the latter changes the title to 
Mandakul by a mistake in copying {j^sL> becomes JjSjI.*). 
Prof. Lane- Poole asserts that this Al *Araj or Al Ara*ij is 
identical with Artabun, one of the Roman generals, and 
that he was also called ' Ibn Kurkub ' (Egypt in the Middle 
Ages, p. 5, note 2). But there is no real authority for the 
identification, nor for transferring the name ' Ibn Karkab ' 
from the Mukaukas to Al 'Araj. 

I think, however, that A I ^Araj is merely a perversion 
through much copying of an original Jtcrij or Jurij, and 
that in fact the name of the commander of the fortress was 
George, probably a different person from the ' George the 
Prefect ' who is mentioned by John of Nikiou. 

(2) Abil Maryam. This person is described by Prof. 
Lane-Poole as a 'Catholic' of Misr, who * joined 'Amr's 
army.' The term Catholicus means nothing more nor less 
than Patriarch. It occurs among our authorities first in 
Tabart, whose Persian associations made him familiar with 
it, as the common designation of the chief bishop of the 
Nestorian and Armenian Churches : it is of very frequent 
use in Sebeos and other writers, and is perfectly well known 
to Du Cange. Indeed Tabari himself defines the term as 

BUTLER L 1 



514 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

meaning * chief of the bishops of the Christians/ but he 
adds the perplexing statement that his name was Ibn 
Maryam. Now, it may be taken that there were only two 
Chief Bishops or Patriarchs at the time of the conquest, viz. 
Cyrus and Benjamin, with the possible but immaterial 
exception of a Gaianite Patriarch unknown. * Ibn Maryam* 
cannot possibly stand for 'Cyrus/ but it can very well 
stand for * Benjamin ' ; and I hope to show that the two 
are identical. By Ibn al Athlr's time the name had been 
corrupted to AMt Maryam^ who is ' Catholicus of Memphis.' 
Makrizi says that the Coptic bishop of Alexandria was 
called AbiQ Mayamin : while Abu '1 Mahasin says, rightly 
of course, that the Coptic bishop of Alexandria was called 
Binyamin or Benjamin. Finally, Suyuti avers that the 
Coptic bishop is Ab'd Maydmtn. One has only to put 
these facts side by side to see at a glance how easily * Abba 
Binyamin ' became twisted into ' Abii Mayamin,' and then 
into ' Abu Maryam/ while ' Ibn Maryam ' probably is a 
corruption of the simple 'Binyamin.' The Arab writers 
of course knew the name Maryam (Mary) as one held in 
high reverence by the Christians, and they mistook the 
unfamiliar * Abba ' for the familiar ' Abu/ while the first 
syllable of Binyamin ^^. was detached and mistaken for ^^\. 
From these confusions, aided by copyists' errors, sprang the 
extraordinary names * Father of Mary' and ' Son of Mary,' 
as applied to a bishop. But we may now confidently 
dismiss *Abfi Maryam' and *Abu Martam' and Mbn 
Maryam ' and * Abu Mayamin,' and substitute in place of 
these fantastic figures in every case the name of Benjamin, 
the Coptic Archbishop of Alexandria. 

But it is not enough to drive away these phantoms. 
Admitting that the historical person intended is Benjamin, 
it is quite impossible to accept the statement that he had 
any part or lot in the dealings with *Amr, whether by 
parley or by battle. The r61e assigned to Benjamin by 
Tabari and those who follow him^ like Ibn al Athir, is 
ridiculous. He is made into a military chieftain under the 
orders of Al Mukaukas, and Tabari, to achieve consistency. 



Appendix C 515 

has to make Al Mukaukas prince of the Copts. But the 
whole weight of the Egyptian authorities (Tabari was a 
foreigner, who travelled in Egypt) is against both supposi- 
tions. They agree clearly in recording that for ten years 
before the conquest, and also for the three years of its 
duration, Benjamin was in hiding in Upper Egypt. Even 
if it stood alone, Severus' Life of Benjamin would be quite 
decisive on this point : but all the authorities, from John of 
Nikiou onwards, on this point are in harmony. 

What, then, is the explanation of the Arab writers 
assigning an active part in the conquest to Benjamin ? It 
is this : they found in early records, or traditions, that the 
leader of the defenders and the foremost person in arrang- 
ing terms with the invaders was an Archbishop of Alex- 
andria ; and they found that after the conquest and in all 
Coptic story the only recognized Archbishop of Alexandria 
was called Benjamin. Moreover, at the second capture of 
Alexandria, at the time of Manuel's rebellion, it w^/ Ben- 
jamin who approached *Amr and treated with him ; and 
this episode has been confused with the treaty made by 
Cyrus. Hence the two persons were confounded, and 
Benjamin has been given the part played by Cyrus at the 
conquest. But, lest this explanation be regarded as obscu- 
rum per obscurius, we now come to the crucial question, 
who was Al Mukaukas ? 

(3) Al Mukaukas. While practically all the Arabic 
authorities speak of a person called by this title, it is very 
noticeable that in the list I have given no name, as distin- 
guished from the title, occurs in Baladhuri, Tabari, Euty- 
chius, Severus, or even Ibn al Athir. Wakidi, it is true, 
calls him 'son of Ra*il'; but that is merely one of those 
fanciful names given to kings, magicians, &c. of prehistoric 
times by Arab romance. It is not till we get to the year 
1200 A.D. that we find Al Mukaukas named as George^ son 
of Mind^ by Abu Salih, while his contemporary Yakut 
gives the name as George^ son of Karkab the Greek, This 
difference points to two separate traditions, or two separate 
sources of information — an inference which is curiously 

Ll2 



5i6 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

confirmed by the fact that we find a little later both pater- 
nities given for the same George in different passages by 
one and the same writer, Abu ^1 Mahasin. 

For the moment I will only note that these names are 
irreconcilable, and that they are of quite late authority. 
In themselves they can throw no light on the personality of 
Al Mukaukas. We must therefore leave them, to see if the 
identity of the Mukaukas can be established on an inde- 
pendent basis, and, if so, whether the solution of the problem 
of identity will enable us to understand the names. Now 
if Baladhuri gives little help to our inquiry, Tabari is 
decidedly misleading. He not only makes the Mukaukas 
* prince of the Copts,' but he makes him head the surrender 
to the Arabs from inside the fortress of Babylon. In this 
he is doubly mistaken ; for the Mukaukas was not a Copt, 
and he was not in the fortress when it was taken. But 
whereas Baladhuri represents the Mukaukas as governor 
of Alexandria, Eutychius represents him as controller of 
finance, acting for Heraclius. Eutychius, it must be 
remembered, was a Melkite, and while admitting that the 
Mukaukas professed the same faith, declares that he was in 
heart an adherent of the Coptic communion — an absurd 
statement fabricated to explain the Mukaukas' action. 

It is not till we come to Severus that the riddle of the 
Mukaukas' identity is solved ; and there the solution is 
clear and unmistakable. Severus was a Copt ; he had no 
motive to disguise the action of the Mukaukas ; and above 
all he wrote his history upon a collation of Coptic and 
other documents, which were preserved in the library at 
Dair Macarius, at the monastery of Nahiya, and in private 
collections. He is sometimes, no doubt, inaccurate and 
impossible. Yet he gives a good deal of information not 
to be found in the early writers I have cited. This is what 
he says : — 

* Cyrus was appointed by Heraclius after the recovery of 
Egypt from the Persians^ to be both Patriarch and governor 
of Alexandria' We know that he held office for ten years, 
during which he fiercely persecuted the Coptic Church. 



Appendix C 517 

This time Benjamin describes as ' the ten years during 
which Heraclins and Al Mukmckas were riding over Egypt' \ 
yet he names Cyrus as ' the misbelieving governor who 
was both Prefect and Patriarch of Alexandria under the 
Romans' Further, whereas Severus represents Benjamin 
as fleeing before the arrival of Cyrus on the warning of an 
angel, he also represents Benjamin as saying ^ Al Mukaukas 
drove me away' There remains, then, not the smallest 
doubt that Severus identifies Al Mukaukas with Cyrus, and 
distinguishes him from Benjamin. 

That Severus is right, and all the other Arabic author- 
ities wrong where they differ from him, I shall endeavour 
to prove. 

Of the few undisputed facts about this period, one is that 
Cyrus was armed with both civil and ecclesiastical power, 
and another that as Patriarch and Viceroy of Heraclius he 
persecuted the Copts for a period of ten years. John of 
Nikiou speaks of ' the persecution which Heraclius made 
through all Egypt against the orthodox (Coptic) faith, at 
the instigation of the Chalcedonian Patriarch Cyrus '; and 
Coptic history is full of it. So John's whole story of the 
conquest assumes the Viceroyalty of Cyrus, which is incon- 
testable. But Abu Salih says that the country was placed 
by Heraclius under the government oi Al Mukaukas \ and 
that Benjamin's flight lasted for ten years, according to the 
warning of the angel, while Al Mukaukas was ruling in 
Egypt. True, Abu Salih calls Al Mukaukas George, son 
of Mini : but of that anon. Ibn Dukmak and Makin agree 
that Heraclius' Viceroy was Al Mukaukas. Makrizi repre- 
sents the Mukaukas as making terms with the Arabs, and 
his master Heraclius as repudiating the bargain ; and Abu 
'1 Mahasin follows him in this, as does Suyuti. There is, 
therefore, fair agreement among the Arab writers as to the 
position occupied by the Mukaukas, but none as to the 
name he bore. And if they were the only authorities, 
the case would not be so strong as it is, though it might 
well rest on the single evidence of Severus. 

There are, however, a few Coptic documents, as well as 



5i8 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Arabic, which bear on the question. The Arabic life of 
Shanudah, published by Amdlineau, is from a Coptic original 
written in the seventh century. It contains by way of 
prophecy these words : * Then shall Antichrist arise and 
shall go before the Roman Emperor, and be made governor 
with the double office of ruler and of bishop. He shall 
come down to Egypt . . . and he shall make war on the 
chief of the bishops at Alexandria . . . who shall fly to the 
region of Timan.' This, of course, is a description of Cyrus 
and his treatment of Benjamin. More important is a frag- 
ment in the Bodleian Library (MSS. Copt. Clar. Press, b. 5), 
which has also been published by Amelineau under the 
title of the * Life of Samuel of Kalamun.' 

This fragment recounts the visit to a monastery of a 
person who is called nKd^TX^oc nenceirTOd.px«G"*CKonoc or 
* the Kd.-yx'ocj the false Archbishop.' The story is told in 
my text (ch. xiii), and need not be repeated. But the 
Kd.irxJoc is there clearly called not only Patriarch but 
also ' controller of the revenues of the land of Egypt ' 
(Tdwg^ievppd^HC e'2:n '2^HjuLto<5'ioii uTe^^P^ nKHJuie). Hence in 
a contemporary ^ document we have a ' Chalcedonian ' (or 
Melkite) Archbishop, whose authority is disowned by the 
Copts in favour of their own Archbishop Benjamin, yet 
who claims in his person the union of civil and ecclesi- 
astical sway over Egypt ; further this person is called 

How exactly this description tallies with the description 
given by Severus of the office and function of Cyrus, the 
Chalcedonian Patriarch and Viceroy of Heraclius, needs no 
pointing out ; it agrees also in part with Eutychius, Makin, 
Ibn Dukmak, and Makrizi ; but the most interesting thing 
about this fragment is that here we have the name Mukau- 
kas in its original Coptic form, and it is assigned to a person 
whose identity with Cyrus is no longer open to question. 

Yet Amelineau misses the true solution. Forced to the 
conclusion that the Mukaukas was a Melkite Patriarch, he 

^ The actual MS. in the Bodleian is dated by Hyvemat about the 
tenth century. 



Appendix C 519 

has no thought of identifying him with Cyrus ; he says, in 
fact, that it is difficult to place him ; that Cyrus must have 
left Alexandria in 639, 'and perhaps it was at this time 
that the Mukaukas was chosen to replace Cyrus : perhaps 
even he was the enemy of Cyrus ! ' 

But among the brilliant services which the French savant 
has rendered to the cause of Egyptian literature, he does not 
pretend to have made a special study of the Arab conquest. 
Hence, although his article on the Mukaukas (' Fragments 
Coptes' in Journal Asiatique^ October-November, 1888, 
pp. 389-409) has a real importance, it does not range over 
a wide enough field ; it does not set out the authorities it 
cites with due regard to their chronology or their value ; 
and it adopts some theories of previous writers without 
critical examination. For example, having settled that 
Al Mukaukas was a Melkite Patriarch, the objection is 
raised, 'If this is so, how comes it that the Coptic historians 
who have written in Arabic — Eutychius, Makin, Abu '1 
Faraj, &c. — have said nothing about it ? ' This objection 
looks formidable, but vanishes at a touch of criticism. 
Amelineau's own reply is as follows : ' Je dois repondre 
naiVement que je n'en sais rien. Des deux derniers, Al 
Makin ne consacre que deux lignes au Mukaukas, Abu '1 
Faraj n'en parle pas. Eutychius lui est favorable, et, s'il 
savait la chose, peut-etre la lui a-t-il pardonnee en faveur 
de sa conduite posterieure ; s'il ne savait pas, c'est une 
raison peremptoire pour qu'il n'en parlat pas. D'ailleurs, 
. . . il ecrivait longtemps apres les evenements, au moins 
600 ans/ 

Eutychius a Copt, and writing at least 600 years after 
the conquest ! It is a curious statement. For of the three 
historians named by Amelineau, Abu '1 Faraj was not a 
Copt at all, nor even an Egyptian, but a Syrian. A second, 
Eutychius, was not a Copt, but actually Melkite Patriarch, 
though he does not identify Cyrus with the Mukaukas: 
and Eutychius wrote, not 'at least 600 years/ but less 
than 300 years, after the conquest. Moreover, Eutychius 
expressly states that the Mukaukas was controller of the 



520 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

revenue in the name of Heraclius : and in this he agrees 
almost textually with Am^lineau's document. Makin was 
a Christian, and may have been a Copt ; but he is a late 
authority, and of no great value. It thus appears how 
utterly baseless is Am^lineau's objection concerning his 
so-called Coptic writers. There is, however, one Coptic 
historian of early date and of capital importance, who wrote 
in Arabic, and whose evidence, as I have shown, would, 
even if unsupported, establish the identity of the Mukaukas 
beyond discussion. I mean Severus, whom Am^lineau 
does not quote. Briefly, however, I may now give Ame- 
lineau's conclusions as follows : — 

1. The story of Mohammed's mission to the Mukaukas 
in 627 is a myth. 

2. The Mukaukas was named George, son of Min^, and 
the ' Ibn Karkab,' which should be written, as Kara- 
bacek shows, * Ibn Farkab,' denotes a second name 
= nap/ca/3tos. 

3. The Mukaukas was of Coptic race on one side, if not 
on both. He was in the Emperor's service, and was 
originally a Melkite by faith. 

4. He was a Melkite Patriarch, but his date can only be 
conjectured. 

5. The name Mukaukas was a nickname derived from 
Kavy^ov or ^avx^ov^ a small bronze coin used from the 
time of the Justins. 

We now come to an extremely interesting contribution 
to the subject made by the learned Portuguese scholar, 
F. M. E. Pereira {Vida do Abba Samuel do Mosteiro do 
Kalamon). This translation of the Ethiopic 'Life of 
Samuel ' is enriched with valuable notes and essays, among 
which is a short treatise on the Mukaukas (pp. 41-53). 
Like Amelineau, whom he largely follows, the writer does 
not cite the MS. of Severus, and he does not accurately 
classify or appraise his authorities : but he shows how 
closely the Ethiopic tallies with the Coptic story, though 
very singularly — like nearly all our authorities — it refrains 
from naming the chief actor in the episode, whom it calls 



Appendix C 521 

* the governor,' and whon^ the Coptic fragment calls 
nKe^Tx^o^j ^"^ Archbishop. Pereira's conclusions differ 
somewhat from Amelineau's and are as follows : — 

I. The author of the persecution was a person known by 
the title of nKd^irxioc or Al Mukaukas. 

Q.. He was a Greek by origin. 

3. He was Patriarch of Alexandria, governor of Egypt, 
and controller of the finance. 

4. His proper name was Cyrus. 

5. The name Mukaukas is derived from Kavyov or Kavyj.ov, 
As to the identity of Al Mukaukas with Cyrus only one 

more word need be said." Amelineau quotes the Coptic 
Synaxarium under 8 T<abah — the day of Benjamin's death — 
as follows : * Benjamin suffered great evil at the hands 
of Al Mukaukas ; he fled to Upper Egypt during ten full 
years . . . The Mukaukas was the head of the faith of 
Chalcedon, and had been made rider and Patriarch over 
Egypt' The Ethiopic Synaxarium is in complete accord 
with this. It is given in full by Pereira, and contains these 
words (text p. 173, tr. p. 180), 'The Mukaukas, that is to 
say thQ governor and Archbishop of the city of Alexandria 
and all the land of Egypt' It is true that the MS. of 
this version of the Synaxarium seems to be dated fifteenth 
century {Catalogue des MSS, J&thiopiens de la BibL Nat,^ 
1877, p. 152). But it nevertheless goes back to a very 
ancient original. In any case it is remarkable to find with 
what extraordinary accuracy the true tradition is preserved 
in these office-books of the two Churches (which were, of 
course, in very close relation), while the secular writers 
for the most part confused and darkened the story, and 
finally lost the truth. 

But that Cyrus was Al Mukaukas and that Al Mukaukas 
was Cyrus, appointed Viceroy and Archbishop of Alexan- 
dria by Heraclius, may now be regarded as finally settled. 
It is curious that John of Nikiou never uses any title cor- 
responding to Al Mukaukas or nKd^Txioc, but his whole 
history of the period teems with evidence that Cyrus the 
Patriarch was the author of the ten years' persecution and 



522 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

the governor of Egypt. To the objection that the Mu- 
kaukas is spoken of as governor of Egypt in 627, when 
Mohammed sent his letter claiming submission to Islam, the 
answer is easy. It is the plainest of truth that not a single 
Arab writer who uses the term Al Mukaukas has any con- 
ception of its meaning or origin ; and the use of the term, 
as applied to the governor of Egypt in 6iZ7, is a mere 
anachronism. The Arab chroniclers had two facts before 
them : (i) that Mohammed sent a mission to the governor 
of Egypt in 627, and (%) that the governor of Egypt at 
the time of the conquest — the man who occupies the most 
prominent position in its annals — was called Al Mukaukas. 
They wrongly inferred that the earlier governor was called 
by the same title, and this confusion between the two was 
so easy as to be almost inevitable to minds naturally un- 
critical. There is no ground, therefore, for rejecting, as 
Amelineau does, the whole incident of the mission, an 
incident as well attested as any in the history of Islam. 
A similar confusion explains the application of the title Al 
Mukaukas to Benjamin at the time of Manuel's rebellion. 

To sum up. The term Al Mukaukas is applied to three 
persons: (i) to a governor who received Mohammed's 
mission some years before the conquest ; (2) to the governor 
at the time of the conquest ; (3) to the Head of the Copts 
at the time of Manuel's rebellion. This shows that the 
Arabs had no clear idea about him, but the whole evidence 
proves that the title belongs properly to the governor at 
the time of the conquest. For all the Arabic authorities 
show that the action of the Mukaukas centres in the 
surrender of Egypt ; and John of Nikiou proves conclu- 
sively that the betrayer of Egypt was Cyrus. 

It remains now to explain how Cyrus comes to be called 
* George son of Mina,' or ' George son of Karkab.* John 
of Nikiou, as we have seen, mentions one George the Pre- 
fect, whom *Amr ordered to construct a bridge over the 
canal at Kaliub. George, therefore, was an historical person 
who occupied a prominent position at the time of the 
Saracen invasion ; and he may be the same person whom 



Appendix C 523 

we have encountered under the guise of Al *Ughairij. It 
is easy to believe that Arab writers have confounded him 
with Cyrus. Whether this George were 'son of Mina' 
or 'son of Karkab,' in my judgement cannot be settled, 
and matters next to nothing; but I am unable to think 
with Karabacek that George's father bore both names, 
though it may be that ' Karkab ' should be written ' Far- 
kab,' and ' Farkab * stands for UapKd(3Los. The word ^^i 
occurs far too late in Arabic literature to represent any- 
thing but a blunder or a series of blunders in copying. 
Abu Salih (p. 156) says that ^ is derived from ' Gre- 
gorius.' Now if we suppose that ^ was corrupted into 
v.^ — an extremely probable supposition — we have the 
simple explanation that Ibn Karkab is a mistake for Ibn 
Karkar and that it means 'son of Gregory.' Note also 
that Gregory appears as ' Grigor ' in Armenian, and that 
the name was a very favourite one in that part of the 
world. The form ' Karkur ' is the common equivalent of 
' Gregory ' among Copts and Armenians to-day. Hence 
it is perfectly possible that Cyrus was son of Gregory, and 
George son of Mina. M. Casanova, however, suggests to me 
that ^J ^\ is a mere corruption of ^joja y} Abu Kirus, 
so that we get in fact the name Cyrus concealed in the 
' Ibn Karkab.' This is both ingenious and plausible. 

The meaning and origin of the title Al Mukaukas are 
more difficult. Late authorities like Damiri's Zoological 
Dictionary (c. 1400), and the KamuSy which follows him 
(nineteenth century), are cited to show that the term 
^fk\ means a ringdove, and various legends are told in 
explanation of the title : but it can hardly be questioned 
that this derivation is a mere inversion of the fact that in 
more modern times the name Al Mukaukas has been given 
to the ringdove as a playful nickname. Nor can Kara- 
bacek's conjecture, that the term is derived from ji^eyavx^?, 
be accepted. Apart from the fact that there seems no 
evidence for the existence of any such title, the very close- 
ness of the correspondence between the Greek and the 
Arabic form is really fatal to the theory. It is hardly con- 



524 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

ceivable that the Arabs should have reproduced such a 
Greek form so nearly. 

We have seen that the title Al Mukaukas occurs in the 
early Coptic form nKd^-yx^oc, and that Amelineau and 
Pereira agree in deriving the term from a Byzantine word 
said to signify a small hollow piece of bronze money, and 
in thinking that the name was given to Cyrus in derision 
of his role as controller of the finance, or taxes, or 
tribute. This explanation, though very far-fetched, might 
be more convincing if there were any clear evidence 
for the use of kovxov or Kav^Lov in Egypt or elsewhere at 
this time or any other. As far as I know, there is none. 
Where does Amelineau find these forms at all ? He refers 
to Du Cange, who gives KavKiov as = a little bowl or cup, 
and one instance of its use in the sense of a hollow 
coin, where the reference is cited as 'Nov. 105 Justin.' 
Du Cange is careful to add that the reading Kavdov in that 
passage is doubtful, and may stand for kokklov. This seems 
Amelineau 's warrant for the existence of the supposed 
* piece of Byzantine money in use since the time of the 
Justins ' ! Pereira adopts this etymology without question : 
'Esta palavra, que tambem se escreve Kav^pv e Kavxi-ov, 
6 o nome de uma moeda cavada, em uso no imperio 
Byzantino, desde o tempo do imperador Justino ' (p. ^^) ; 
but it rests on very slender evidence if any, and must be 
rejected. 

So far, then, there seems no satisfactory explanation of 
the title Al Mukaukas ; and perhaps the problem is hope- 
less. But I venture to offer two possible solutions for what 
they are worth. 

(i) The Arabic writers who give the vocalization of Al 
Mukaukas write ^j^lpull, which is also the vocalization for 
the late word in the sense of ringdove, and it may have 
been so written to produce identity. On the other hand, 
the Ethiopic is very clear in writing ' Mukaukas,' and there 
can be no doubt that the term passed into Ethiopic at 
a very early date. Now, not a single author who has dealt 
with this problem has asked the question, Where did Cyrus 



Appendix C 525 

come from ? what was his origin ? Remember he was not 
an Egyptian, nor even a Constantinopoh'tan ; and surely 
there is no question that would have been heard more often 
among the eager and curious crowds of Alexandria. And 
the answer would have been, e/c rov KavKaaov — KavKcicrtoj : 
for Cyrus was translated by Heraclius from the see of 
Phasis in the Caucasus. It is, therefore, extremely probable 
that he was at once called 6 KavKacnos in Greek, and this 
Greek form may have taken shape in Coptic either as 
nKdwTx^^cioc or nKd^Tx^foc, giving origin in its less corrupted 
form in the seventh or eighth century to the Arabic 
*Mukaukas,' and surviving in the tenth century in the 
more corrupted nK^.Tx.ioc of the MS. in the Bodleian 
Library. The Coptic n would easily go into the Arabic 
mti', the process aided by the analogy which would result 
with the participial form in Arabic. 

Though not free from objection, this explanation is at 
least based on historical fact : and if the change of Kd.TKd.cioc 
into Kd^Tx^oc be thought too violent even for two centuries 
of Coptic speech and script, I may urge that Phasis was in 
Colchis, and that Cyrus might also with equal propriety 
have been called hkoXx^oc (the Colchian), from which to 
nKd.TX5oc the transference is very easy. 
(2) The other explanation is as follows : — 
In Du Cange's Glossary will be found the word Kav^os, in 
the sense amatus, amasius (with the corresponding feminine 
Kttvxa, concubina), connoting a form of vice. From this word 
it would be quite simple and natural to coin, if it did not 
exist, the adjective 6 Kavx^-os, denoting a person addicted to 
that form of vice. This term 6 Kavxios would go straight 
into the Coptic as nKe.irxioc, the adjective unaltered and 
the article changing, exactly on the analogy of n^^ce^Hc for 
6 ao-e/37]9, which is found more than once in the very docu- 
ment in which nKe^Tx^oc occurs, and is there applied to the 
same person, Cyrus. But, it will be said, this imputation 
on Cyrus is quite without warrant in history. Granted ; 
but that is no proof that the Copts did not make it. On 
the contrary, it is extremely probable that they did. The 



526 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

ten years' persecution of Cyrus planted in their hearts the 
bitterest hatred, which found vent in savage denunciation 
of the enemy. In this very document Cyrus is called * The 
Impious One/ ' Jew/ 'Atheist/ ' Son of Satan/ 'Antichrist'; 
his doctrine is 'devilish/ his faith is 'defiled/ and he is 
' more accursed than the devil and his demons.' Is it likely 
that, when the religion of Cyrus was assailed in terms like 
these, his moral character would escape censure ? If then 
his private life was the mark of the same unmeasured 
abuse, nothing is more likely than that he was charged with 
the vice which is suggested by the term 6 Kav)(^io's^ however 
ill-founded the charge may have been. 

These two solutions which I have given seem independent 
and incompatible ; but I would suggest that they may really 
be closely connected. For it is easy to imagine both that 
Cyrus was originally called 6 Kaux«o"tos or 6 KoXxtKos (or 
KoXxtos), and that the quick wit of the Egyptians caught 
up the name and transformed it into the abusive epithet 
6 KatJ^tos. Thus a term, purely geographical in origin, was 
transformed into a foul invective ; and the name has lasted 
for centuries after its real significance was totally forgotten. 

APPENDIX D 

ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE 
ARAB CONQUEST 

So great are the difficulties of dealing with the dates of 
this period that the task of finding the truth seems almost 
impossible. It is not one problem that a writer has to face, 
but a number of problems so entangled and interlaced that 
a solution in one direction seems always to bring fresh 
complications in another. But a great deal has been done 
to simplify matters by Mr. E. W. Brooks, whose learned 
article on this subject in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift 
(1895, PP* 43^~45) "^3,y be said to have rescued the 
chronology from the domain of conjecture, and to have 
set it on a scientific basis. His article must be the founda- 



Appendix D 527 

tion of any study either of the dates or of the order of 
events of this epoch, and I most readily acknowledge my 
great obligations to it. 

The Greek authorities, as Mr. Brooks shows, are of no 
value. Neither Theophanes nor Nicephorus mentions the 
fall of Alexandria, although the latter does say that 
Heraclonas, after the death of his half-brother Constan- 
tine in May, 641, restored Cyrus to the patriarchate of 
Alexandria, implying that the city was not then captured 
or near capture. Nicephorus' history breaks off in 641, and 
the story is resumed only in 668. But both Nicephorus 
and Theophanes are totally untrustworthy with regard to 
the earlier part of the invasion ; their stories are full of 
discrepancies, and they confound the order of events in a 
way that must prove, and has proved, seriously misleading 
to historians who rely upon them. 

Syrian and Armenian authorities seem equally useless. 
Elijah of Nisibis (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 7. 197, fol. 29, cited 
by Mr. Brooks) puts the conquest of Alexandria in A. H. 20 
(Dec. 640 — Dec. 641). Abu '1 Faraj is silent, save for the 
well-known story of the destruction of the library. Sebeos 
also is silent. 

The Arabic writers rival the Greek in omissions, con- 
fusions, and discrepancies ; but a study of them is not 
fruitless. 

Ibn ^Abd al Hakam (quoted by Weil, Geschichte der 
Chalifen) says that *Amr was at Al *Arish on the Day of 
Sacrifice, 10 Dhu 1 Hijjah, A. H. 18 = Dec. 12, 639; and 
also that the siege of Alexandria lasted for nine months 
after the death of Heraclius. Suyutt cites the same writer 
as saying that, while after the conquest of Misr *Amr sent 
troops of horsemen to the towns and villages round about, 
the Fayum remained unknown to the Arabs for a year. 

Balddhuri puts the invasion of Egypt in A. H. 19 (begins 
Jan. %^ 640), and makes both the battle of Heliopolis and 
the expedition to the Fayum subsequent to the fall of the 
fortress of Babylon. He says that *Amr marched north- 
wards, i.e. to Alexandria, in A.H. 21 (Dec. 10, 641 — Nov. 29, 



528 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

642), after having stayed some time at Babylon ; and that 
in the same year — the Year of Famine — Omar wrote 
bidding *Amr send the tribute by sea. He also quotes 
the statement that Misr was conquered A. H. 30. Mtsr is 
generally translated here and elsewhere as ' Egypt/ whereas 
in this case it means unquestionably the town of Misr (or 
Memphis), the predecessor of Fustat. 

Idn Kutaibah says that *the battle of Bab al Yun was 
won by *Amr in A. H. 30/ 

Tahart alleges that the order to invade Egypt came to 
* Amr at the beginning of A. H. 20 = end of December, 640 ; 
and he gives the precise date of Rabi* II in the same year 
(March !20— April 17, 641) for the fall of Babylon. The 
two statements are inconsistent, since it is impossible that 
Babylon could have been taken within three months of 
*Amr receiving in Palestine the order to march. But the 
second date is corroborated from independent sources, so 
that the first must be erroneous ; and if we put the invasion 
in the beginning of A. H. 19 instead of 20, we find Ibn *Abd 
al Hakam, Baladhuri, and Tabari in practical agreement 
as to the opening of the campaign. Indeed it is certain 
that Tabari must have written 19 ; because in his account 
of the death of *Amr he places exactly four years of his 
government under Omar, whose death took place in Dhu 
'1 Hijjah, A. H. rj3 : consequently *Amr's rule began Dhii '1 
Hijjah, A. H. 19 ; and it would be absurd to date his rule 
of Egypt from a time anterior to the invasion. 

Tabari further says that Alexandria capitulated after 
five months of siege ; and that the revolt (which I call 
Manuel's revolt) occurred early in A. H. 35. 

Eutychius^ statements are as follows. Faramd, i.e. 
Pelusium, was taken after one month's siege, and the 
fortress of Babylon after seven months' siege. Al Mukaukas 
escaped from the fortress at the time of high Nile. There 
were three battles between Babylon and Alexandria, and 
the Great City was taken ' on Friday of Muharram in the 
new moon in A. H. 20, the twentieth year of Heraclius 
and eighth of Omar's caliphate,' The conquest of Barca 



Appendix D 529 

followed, and Tripolis was subdued in A. H. 22. If by 
Friday of Muharram is meant the first day of the month 
I Muharram in A.H. 20 = Dec. 21, 640 : but i Muharram 
in the eighth year of Omar = Dec. 10, 641. Neither day fell 
on a Friday. The former date would be in the thirty-first 
of Heraclius, and at the latter Heraclius was no longer alive. 
So much for Eutychius. 

Severus of Ushmilnain says that *the prince of the 
Muslims sent an expedition . . . under *Amr in the year o^^"] 
of the Martyrs/ and * the army of Islam marched down into 
Egypt in great force on 12 Ba*i\nah, i.e. the Roman 
month of December.' Here again is an error : for the 
12 Ba'tanah or Payni = June 6: while if December, '>^^'] 
A. M. is right, that must be December, 640, not 641. The 
Chronicon Orientale says that ' on 12 Payni, '>,^''] A. M. *Amr 
came to Egypt and took it' But 12 Payni, o^^"] A.M. = 
June 6, 641 ; and Makrizi specially says that * the Coptic 
date for the capture of the fortress is 12 Payni.' Severus 
adds that * in 360 A. M. the Muslims took the city of 
Alexandria and threw down its walls' — a touch which 
shows that he is thinking of the second capture after 
Manuel's revolt. Clearly the chronology of Severus is not 
helpful. 

Abil Sdlik adds little to our knowledge. He quotes 
from the Book of Al Jandh that *Amr conquered Egypt 
(or Misr) in A.H. 19 (Jan. 2 — Dec. 20, 640): that he 
encamped outside a place called Janan ar Rihan (p. 73). 
He also says that 'Amr conquered Egypt (or Misr) on 
Friday, i Muharram, A. H. 20 : he quotes or misquotes the 
date given by Severus. 

Yakut is important. He says that *Amr begged Omar's 
leave to invade Egypt in A.H. 18 (Jan. 12, 639 — Jan. 2, 640). 
The Roman forces first met the Arabs at Farama, and 
fighting continued about two months. After that little 
resistance till Bilbais was reached, where there was constant 
fighting for a month : then came an easy march to Umm 
Dunain or Al Maks, where the Arabs were delayed fighting 
about two months. 

BUTLER M m 



530 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

This gives a total of nearly six months from the invasion, 
making allowance for the time spent in marching, and would 
bring us from Dec. 1% with great nicety to June 6, 

It was at this point, says Yakut, that *Amr sent for rein- 
forcements ; and the fortress was taken at the time of high 
Nile, i. e. September or a little later. Yet the same writer 
a page or so lower says, ' The conquest of Babylon took 
place on Friday, i Muharram, A. H. 20' (= Dec. 21, 640), 
the date usually assigned for the capture of Alexandria. 
This is bewildering enough. Ydkut adds that 'Amr set 
out towards Alexandria in Rabi* I, A. H. 20 (Feb. 20 — 
March 20, 641) — probably an error for Rabi' II — and on 
reaching the city 'Amr besieged it for six months. Else- 
where he says that Alexandria was taken after a siege in 
A.H. 20 (ends Dec. 9, 641), and that *Amr made peace with 
Barca in A.H. 21 (Dec. 10, 641 — Nov. 29, 642). 

According to Ibn Khaldtln, after the capture of Jerusalem 
*Amr asked leave to invade Egypt, and this was in A.H. 21: 
*Amr also marched into Africa (Barca) in A.H. 21 ! 

Makrtzt is rather voluminous. He repeats that *Amr 
was at *Arish on the Day of Sacrifice: that he spent a month 
at Farama : that Al Mukaukas evacuated the fortress at 
high Nile, and that it was still high Nile when the. fortress 
was taken. But he quotes Al Kindt as saying that after 
the capture of Babylon *Amr set out for Alexandria, and 
this was in Rabi* I, A. H. 20 — or Jumada II, according to 
another writer (Rabi* I begins on Feb. 20, Rabi* II on 
March 20, Jumada I on April 17, 641, and Jumada II on 
May t8: the true date lies in Jumada I, as we shall see). 
Heraclius' death is wrongly given as A.H. ,19, and the 
writer says that it encouraged the Muslims, who continued 
the siege with increased vigour: but he quotes Al Laith 
for the alternative date A. H. 20, which is correct. The 
capture of Alexandria took place nine months and five 
days after the death of Heraclius, and that was on Friday, 
I Muharram, A. H. 21 (Dec. 10, 641, but Monday). Al Laith 
says the first capture of Alexandria was in A.H. 22 (begins 
Nov. 30, 642). Makrizt gives a list of authorities for dates 



Appendix D 531 

in relation to the conquest, varying from A. H. 16 to ii6, 
but adds that ' A. H. 20 is the most probable and the most 
generally accepted.' 

Abil V Mahdsin cites Adh Dhahabi for the statement 
that Omar wrote the order for the invasion in A. H. 20 
(begins Dec. 21, 640) : and Ibn 'Abd al Hakam for the state- 
ment that the siege of Babylon lasted seven months. He 
himself puts the * conquest of Egypt,' or perhaps of Misr, 
I Muharram, A. H. 20 ; he quotes Ibn Kathir, Wakidi, and 
Abu Ma*shar for the same date for the capture of Misr. 
Wakidi puts the capture of Alexandria in the same year, 
while Abu Ma*shar puts it in A. H. 25. Saif says that both 
Misr and Alexandria were taken in A.H. 16. The first year 
of 'Amr's government was A. H. 20. 

Suyttti^ after quoting Al Laith for A. H. 20 as the date of 
Heraclius' death, says that the siege of Alexandria lasted 
for nine months after that event, having begun five months 
before : and yet adds that the city fell on ist Muharram, 
A. H. 20 ! This however is a slip, for several pages later 
Suyuti remarks that ' the first capture of Alexandria was 
in A.H. 21, the second A.H. 25.' He cites Ibn Kutaibah, 
as quoted by Al Kuda'i, for the statement that *Amr returned 
from Alexandria (i.e. to Babylon) in Dhti 1 Ka'dah, A.H. 20 
(Oct.-Nov. 641). 

So much for the chief Arabic authorities. Their dis- 
crepancies are obviously great and hard to reconcile. But 
it is easy to mark some of the sources of the confusion 
which prevails among these writers, and has puzzled and 
misled modern historians. Probably no other period of 
the same brevity has so many natural pitfalls for the 
chronologer. Here, as in the case of the Persian conquest, 
we have a period of some three years, and a date is loosely 
given for the conquest, when in one case it represents the 
invasion, in another the completed subjugation, of the 
country. Further, the name ' Misr ' most unfortunately 
denotes both the town of Memphis close to Babylon on 
the south and also the whole country of Egypt. Conse- 
quently the ' capture of Memphis ' and ' the capture of 

M m 2 



532 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Egypt ' are often impossible to distinguish. Then the 
capture of Babylon was a different event from the capture 
of Misr : but the two localities practically adjoined, and 
the confusion of the events was almost inevitable. Lastly, 
Alexandria was captured not once, but twice ; and even 
the earliest Arab chroniclers, who wrote 200 years after- 
wards, found the tradition much bedimmed and the order 
of events forgotten. Accordingly their mistakes and 
contradictions must be pronounced more deplorable than 
surprising. 

But an entirely new light has been cast on both the 
history and the chronology of the conquest by the work 
of John, the Coptic bishop of Nikiou. John was one of 
the bishops attending the consecration of the Patriarch 
Isaac in 690 A. D. (see infra, pp. 548-50), and was probably 
born about the time of the invasion ; but he must have 
heard every incident recounted by eyewitnesses. His 
evidence therefore is of extreme value, as far as it goes, 
though unfortunately parts of the history are entirely 
wanting, while others are in such lamentable disorder that 
the sense cannot be followed. But notwithstanding the 
state of the Ethiopic MS., it gives some fresh dates of 
remarkable precision, and these dates give fixed bases for 
the construction of a scientific chronology. 

We have already seen that for the time of the Persian 
conquest there is a blank in John's history. The gap 
reaches from the accession of Heraclius to thirty years 
beyond, from 610 to 640 about. The entry of the Arabs 
into Egypt is not recorded : and when the story is resumed, 
Theodore, commander-in-chief of the Roman forces in 
Egypt, had just heard of the defeat and death of John, 
general of the militia, in the Fayum. The Roman troops 
then concentrated at the fortress of Babylon with the 
intention of giving battle to the Arabs before the inun- 
dation. The Nile begins to rise about Midsummer, and 
reaches its full height at the autumnal equinox : so that 
the engagement at Heliopolis may be set down to July 
or August. If now we follow Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, Baladhuri, 



Appendix D 533 

and Tabari in placing the entry of the Saracens in December, 
639, we have the battle of Heliopolis in July or August, 640 : 
and it may well be that the reinforcements of the Saracen 
army were first seen from the towers of Babylon on June 5, 
a day which from Severus and others i§ proved to have 
a strong hold on Coptic tradition, but which cannot be 
associated with any decisive event in the conquest. 

Mr. Brooks is clearly right in regarding chapters cxiv 
and cxv of John's history as out of place. The heading 
of chapter cxv runs, ' How the Muslims got possession of 
Misr in the fourteenth year of the lunar cycle, and took 
the citadel of Babylon in the fifteenth year,' although un- 
fortunately the corresponding narrative has dropped out of 
the body of the text. In chapter cxvi the death of 
Heraclius is dated *in the thirty-first year of his reign, 
in the Egyptian month of Yakatit, which answers to the 
Roman month of February, in the fourteenth year of the 
cycle and the year 357 of Diocletian.' The fall of the fort- 
ress of Babylon is said in ch. cxvii to have happened on 
Easter Monday, and in cxviii the capture of Nikiou is 
dated the following ' Sunday, 18 Genbot in the fifteenth 
year of the cycle.' Mr. Brooks, following Zotenberg, 
remarks that of these dates the only one which we can 
control — that for the death of Heraclius — is absolutely 
accurate, since we know that Heraclius died on Feb. 11, 
641 ; and that this fact is a strong presumption for the 
accuracy of the other dates. But both authors, in spite of 
this assertion, find themselves compelled to demonstrate 
that the other dates are only partially correct. Thus, 
speaking of the cycle years named in the heading of ch. cxv 
Mr. Brooks says, * I cannot think that much confidence is 
to be placed in these dates ' (p. 439) ; and again he proves 
that when the 18 Genbot fell on a Sunday it was not in the 
fifteenth year of the indiction, as John states ; that in short 
we must alter John's date, which would give May 13, 642, 
to May 13, 641. In other words, part of John of Nikiou's 
evidence has to be explained away. 

Now I venture to think that this is quite needless. The 



534 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

mistake arises from a misunderstanding of John's cycle, 
which John's critics wrongly identify with the indiction. 
But John himself clearly calls it the lunar cycle, and he is not 
referring to the indiction — which doubtless had fallen into 
disuse in Egypt when he wrote — but to the Dionysian 
cycle of nineteen years, which continues in use to the 
present day, and in which the numbers are commonly called 
the Golden Numbers. Zotenberg says that this cycle was 
not used for civil purposes ; but, the indiction being obso- 
lescent in Egypt, John was more than justified in using the 
ecclesiastical reckoning, with which as a learned bishop he 
must have been quite familiar. We may now set out his 
statements thus : — 

(i) Capture of the town of Misr, fourteenth year of cycle. 

(%) Death of Heraclius, fourteenth year of cycle on Feb. 
11,641. 

(3) Capture of citadel of Babylon, fifteenth year of cycle, 
Easter Monday, i.e. April 9, 641. 

(4) Capture of Nikiou, fifteenth year of cycle, May 13, 
641. 

This table shows that, if John is correctly reported, the 
year of the cycle he employs changes between Feb. 11 and 
April 9. But this is precisely the case: for the Dionysian 
lunar cycle began on March 23 (S. Butcher on the Ecclesi- 
astical Calendar^ p. 73, and Bond's Handybook of Dates, 
p. iji8) ; and the fourteenth year of the cycle extends from 
March 23, 640, to March 22, 641, the fifteenth year simi- 
larly from March 23, 641, to March %%, 642,. If my theory 
be sound, the exactitude of John's chronology is completely 
vindicated ; not only is there nothing which requires ex- 
plaining away, but our confidence in the writer's dates is 
greatly strengthened. 

I may add that the indiction, as used in Egypt before 
the conquest, had become worse than useless for historical 
purposes, because, as Wilcken shows {Hermes, 19, pp. 1^^ 
seq.), instead of commencing with i Thoth, the Egyptian 
new year's day, and so corresponding with a calendar year, 
it was reckoned sometimes from the day of the reigning 



Appendix D 535 

Emperor's accession, and sometimes from various other 
days through the summer, on a system, or want of system, 
which no one can understand. There is the more reason, 
therefore, to credit a capable writer like John with the use 
of a notation of fixed and unimpeachable value. 

There is one other passage in John's story which gives 
a cycle date and which may seem to tell against my theory. 
In ch. cxxi we read, ' In the second year of the lunar 
cycle, there arrived John from Damietta . . . who assisted 
the Muslims in order to prevent them from destroying the 
city.' This year would run from March 23, 646-7 ; so 
that the event must have happened after Manuel's rebellion, 
of which there is not a word in the Chronicle. Nevertheless 
I think the date is correct. The existence of another gap 
here at the end of the history is no matter for surprise. 
The alternative is to take the year of the indiction, which 
would be 643-4. But this is practically impossible, 
because in that year there is no record of any event which 
would have inclined the Arabs to the destruction of Alex- 
andria ; whereas by all accounts Manuel's revolt and the 
Roman reoccupation of Alexandria took place about 
November, 645 ; his forces were not crushed till some 
months later ; and the recapture of the city by the Arabs 
almost certainly happened after March 23 in 646. We 
know too that on the recapture a great part of the city 
perished in the flames, and that ' Amr actually did destroy 
part of the walls, so that he may well have contemplated 
the destruction of the whole city. Moreover, Zotenberg 
appears in his translation to have omitted an important 
word ; for where he renders * Apres avoir pris possession 
d'Alexandrie, il (*Amr) fit dessecher le canal de la ville,' 
Dr. Charles renders, ' When he seized the city of Alexan- 
dria, he ofte?i had the canal emptied ' ; and these words 
show that, in writing the paragraph in which the date 
occurs, the writer's mind was travelling considerably beyond 
the first capture, which, as we shall see, occurred in 64:^. The 
date at issue, therefore, fits in with my theory of the Dionysian 
lunar cycle, which I venture to regard as established. 



536 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

We now come to a date of great importance and some per- 
plexity, that of the Patriarch Cyrus' return from Constanti- 
nople to Alexandria. Cyrus had been recalled from Egypt 
by Heraclius about mid November, 640, after the first 
abortive treaty for the surrender of Babylon ; and he 
seems to have been sent into exile. Restored to favour 
by Heraclius' successor, Constantino III, he was to have 
been sent back to Egypt, when after a reign of one hundred 
days the Emperor died in May, 641. Heraclonas came to 
the throne, but the revolt of Valentine secured in the same 
summer the association of the Emperor's half-brother, 
Constans, in the purple. About the same time Cyrus was 
dispatched with reinforcements to Egypt, and he was at 
Rhodes — probably taking in stores at the arsenal — early in 
September. Theodore, the commander-in-chief for Egypt, 
was also at Rhodes, and throwing off his allegiance to 
Martina at the instigation of Valentine, wished to sail for 
Pentapolis, but was landed at Alexandria with Cyrus at 
dawn on 1 7 Maskaram (Thoth), the feast of the Holy Cross, 
i. e. September 14. 

Such is the narrative formed from the sadly dislocated 
story of John of Nikiou, and it is confirmed by the state- 
ment of Nicephorus that Cyrus was sent back by Hera- 
clonas. But now comes in one of those unfortunate ex post 
facto prophecies, so common in Coptic writers, which would 
make it necessary to fix the date of Cyrus' arrival at Easter. 
Directly after his arrival John relates (ch. cxx) that in the 
celebration at the great church of Caesarion on Easter Day 
the deacon at the mass chose another chant instead of the 
proper one, ' This is the day which the Lord hath made,' 
&c. (Ps. cxviii. 24-26) ; the change was considered very 
ill-omened, and the word of the priests went abroad that 
Cyt-us would never see another Easter. And when Cyrus 
subsequently died on Holy Thursday, 25 Magabit — three 
days before the following Easter — the people pointed to the 
accomplishment of the prophecy. Mr. Brooks shows with 
convincing clearness that 25 Magabit (Phamenoth) is March 
21, not April 2 as Zotenberg reckons ; and further, that as 



Appendix D 537 

in 642 Easter Day fell on March 24, in that year, and that 
year only, Holy Thursday coincided with 25 Magabit ; so 
that *the death of Cyrus is fixed beyond possibility of 
doubt to Thursday, March 21, 642.' It follows that the 
Easter on which Cyrus is by this tale supposed to have 
returned was the Easter of 641, which fell on April 8. 
Put briefly now John's assertions would be as follows : — 
(i) Cyrus landed September 14, after the death of Hera- 
clius, or 641. 

(2) He celebrated at Easter, 641, the day of his return. 

(3) He died March 21, 642. 

These assertions are obviously inconsistent. Zotenberg 
makes no doubt that Cyrus landed on Sept. 14, and thinks 
it is very strange that his return should be celebrated by 
a solemn service seven months later. But he accepts the 
strangeness, and puts Cyrus' death off to 643. Mr. Brooks 
takes another view. Proving conclusively that Cyrus died 
on the Thursday before Easter, 642, he argues that Zoten- 
berg is wrong in making the return of Theodore and the 
return of Cyrus coincide, and he dates the arrival of Cyrus 
Easter, 641. He sees the difficulty of rejecting John's 
statement that the return of Cyrus occurred after the death 
of Constantine HI, and the concurrent testimony of Nice- 
phorus ; but he inclines to the view that John's text is here 
faulty. Finally he says, * Whether indeed Cyrus actually 
returned before Easter, 641, must be left an open question, 
but that John means to represent him as having done so 
I can feel no doubt 1. It is of course possible that the 
chronology has been altered for the purpose of bringing m. 
the prophecy ' (1. c. p. 441). 

I cannot quite agree with either of these views. On the 
one hand Zotenberg's date for Cyrus' death is absolutely 
untenable^ ; and on the other I think Mr. Brooks is wrong 
in separating the return of Cyrus from the return of Theodore, 
which latter event occurred on Sept. 14, 641. Mr. Brooks 

^ Pereira, in his Vida do Abba Daniel (p. i8), adopts Zotenberg's 
chronology without examination, just as he adopts Amdlineau's for the 
date of Isaac (p. 29). 



538 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

says that the two events are ' entirely distinct ' ; but the 
text reads thus : ' He (Theodore) entered Alexandria on 
the night of the seventeenth day of Maskaram, on the 
festival of the Holy Cross. And all the inhabitants of 
Alexandria, men and women, old and young, went out to 
meet the Patriarch Cyrus, rejoicing and giving thanks for 
the arrival of the Patriarch of Alexandria. And Theodore 
betook himself secretly with the Patriarch to the church of 
the Tabionnesiotes^ and closed the door.' In face of this 
language it seems to me plainly impossible to suppose that 
the two men arrived at different times, or that, when 
Theodore arrived, Cyrus had already been upwards of five 
months in Alexandria. Moreover, if Cyrus returned at 
Easter, 641, other difficulties follow. Not only must we 
reject John's whole account of the events at Constantinople 
after Heraclius' death, or at least Cyrus' part in them, as 
well as the evidence of Nicephorus, but we must reject 
a further very clear statement of John's. For after relating 
the solemn service at the Caesarion, he says that Cyrus then 
went to Babylon. Mr. Brooks accepts this, and adds that 
Babylon ' had just then fallen into the hands of the Arabs,' 
having been captured, as he proves, April 9, 641. Yet on 
the next page he shows that the capitulation of Alexandria 
which Cyrus agreed upon with 'Amr at Babylon, and which 
admittedly was the object of Cyrus' visit to Babylon, took 
place in the month between Oct. 1% and Nov. 10, 641. 
How can these statements be reconciled ? Moreover, we 
know from John and from other sources that *Amr left 
Babylon almost directly after its capture, and was already 
at Nikiou by May 13, so that there is no room left for the 
visit and the negotiations of Cyrus. Moreover, to date 
the capitulation of Alexandria in this interval would be, as 
Mr. Brooks would acknowledge, to dislocate the whole 
chronology. 

Holding then with Zotenberg that Cyrus landed with 
Theodore on Holy Cross Day, i. e. Sept. 14, 641, and 
holding with Mr. Brooks that Cyrus died the Holy Thursday 
following, i.e. March i^i, 642^, one has to reconcile this 



Appendix D 539 

position with John's evidence. A study of the context 
will give the key to the problem. For on examination 
it becomes transparently clear that the festival at which 
Cyrus' return was celebrated, when the wrong chant was 
used, was not Easter at all, but the Exaltation of the Cross^ 
i. e. the festival of the day on which, as I contend, Cyrus 
landed. For (i) we are told in so many words that Cyrus' 
sermon was all about the Cross ^ ; and that he specially 
carried in procession from the convent of the Tabionnesiotes 
that portion of the Holy Rood or that Cross which the 
general John had brought to Cyrus before his exile. These 
details are quite pointless if the festival was Easter, but 
full of point if it was Holy Cross Day. Further, just as 
a few lines earlier Theodore is shown to have repaired 
immediately on landing to the convent of the Tabionne- 
siotes in company with Cyrus, so here Cyrus is represented 
as having come from the convent of the Tabionnesiotes to 
the Caesarion for the so-called Easter service. If it had 
been really at Easter, this coincidence about the convent is 
meaningless ; while if, as I contend, it was the Exaltation 
service, the coincidence is a simple necessity. On landing 
he went to the convent, and from the convent he came in 
procession to the Caesarion. Finally, the chant ' This is 
the day' &c. is used on all despotic days and during the 

days of festival— ;;kflJ j»lil J-d^ ».3J^^ ^K^'iX J — but I am 
unable to discover whether its liturgical use furnishes 
any clear evidence either for or against Easter. On the 
whole, however, I cannot doubt that the service which 
Cyrus attended on his arrival was that of the Exaltation, 

^ Zotenberg has missed the sense of the passage. He renders, * II 
fit ouvrir (?) la citerne dans laquelle se trouvait la Sainte-Croix qu'il 
avait regue avant son exil du g^n^ral Jean.' The query is his ; but 
Dr. Charles' version is, ' Now he extolled highly the well in which the 
holy cross had been found ^ which he had received previously to his 
exile from the general John.' Cyrus was obviously recounting the 
story of the Invention of the Cross, and all doubt must vanish when it 
is remembered that with the Eastern Church the Invention and the 
Exaltation of the Cross were always celebrated on one and the same 
day, September 14. 



540 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

or in other words that his arrival took place on Septem- 
ber 14, 641. 

But if this is so, what becomes of the prophecy ? My 
answer is twofold : (i) that it may still stand for what it is 
worth. For if it was made at the Exaltation service, it 
referred either to the anniversary of that same festival or to 
the next Easter: and in either case it came true. But 
(2) the rational explanation is that on Cyrus' return the 
people saw signs of illness or change upon him, and 
coloured the incident of the chant with their own fore- 
boding. * He will never see another Easter * was the 
language of the forecast. Some years later the fact of his 
death just before Easter became the central fact in the 
story, the terms of which were then altered at a time when 
the precise details of what passed were forgotten. Because 
Cyrus did not see another Easter, the origin of the fore- 
cast was thus loosely assigned, regardless of chronology, 
to the previous Easter. Accordingly it was natural that 
the words ' on the day of the Holy Resurrection * should 
be interpolated in John's text, where indeed they look 
wholly out of place ^. They are almost certainly some 
scribe's note, which has been embodied in the text ; and 
if they are removed, every perplexity disappears, and the 
order of events which was confused and obscure becomes 
clear and luminous. 

John's next statement now follows quite naturally. Shortly 
after Holy Cross Day, Cyrus repaired to Babylon to seek 
an interview with *Amr, whose return from his somewhat 
barren campaign in the Delta is fixed by Ibn Kutaibah in 
Dhu '1 Ka dah, A. H. 30 (Oct. \i — Nov. 10, 641). This would 
give the date of Cyrus' visit as towards the end of Octo- 
ber ; so that it would be impossible to fix the date of the 
treaty as early as Oct. 17 with Mr. Brooks. Even if *Amr 
had reached Babylon early in Dhu '1 Ka*dah, which is not 
stated, several days must have been spent in negotiating, 

^ 'Lorsque — le jour de la Sainte-R^surrection — on commenga k 
cdl^brer la messe, au lieu de chanter le psaume du jour,' &c. (Zoten- 
berg). 



Appendix D 541 

and I cannot think the treaty was concluded much before 
the end of Dhil '1 Ka'dah — in fact I would place the date 
of capitulation arranged by Cyrus on Nov. 8 precisely. 
The terms included an armistice of eleven months — within 
which time the Roman troops were bound to evacuate 
the city of Alexandria. Mr. Brooks chooses Oct. 17, 
because it gives eleven months exactly to Sept. 17, 64.2, 
which he shows to be the date of the evacuation. But 
there is no reason to think that the Byzantine army would 
stay to the last day of the armistice, when once they were 
ready to sail: and if the eleven months counted from 
Nov. 8 by Arab reckoning, the time would expire on 
Sept. 29. Mr. Brooks urges that his date (Oct. 17) 
* exactly agrees with the statement of Ibn *Abd al Hakam 
that the siege lasted nine months after Heraclius' death.' 
Heraclius died on Sunday, Feb. 11, 641 ; so that even by 
Arab reckoning we get into November. On the other 
hand, Makrizi says that the capture of Alexandria took place 
nine months and five days after the death of Heraclius. 
Now Feb. II in 641 = 23 Safar, and nine months and five 
days added give 28 Dhu 1 Ka'dah, which corresponds to 
Thursday, Nov. 8. 

This I think is the true date. As Mr. Brooks observes, 
the treaty cannot have been later than November, because 
Cyrus on his return to Alexandria from Babylon requested 
Theodore to submit it to the Emperor Heraclius, i. e. 
Heraclonas, whose death occurred within that month. But 
it is an interesting question whether the Arab writers, while 
correctly giving the interval between the death of Heraclius I 
and the surrender of Alexandria, dated his death Feb. 11, 
or March 11. Theophanes and Cedrenus both give, though 
wrongly, March 11 as the date; and possibly this may have 
misled Muslim historians. For it is curious to remark that 
if we calculate the nine months and five days from March 1 1, 
or 22 Rabi* I, we come to 27 Dhu '1 Hijjah, or Dec. 7. Now 
this Dec. 7 was a Friday and comes very close to the 
1 Muharram (Dec. 10) which is so firmly fixed in Arab 
tradition as the day of the fall of Alexandria. 



542 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

Mr. Brooks shows with great force that John's remaining 
dates give, when rightly interpreted, July 14, 64^^, as the 
date of the enthronement of Peter, the successor of 
Cyrus in the Melkite Patriarchate, and Sept. 17 of the 
same year as the date on which the city was evacuated 
by the imperial forces (p. 443). I may add that the 
return of Benjamin from his exile in Upper Egypt took 
place in the year 644, though probably nearer the end 
than the beginning^. 

But I am bound to disagree with Mr. Brooks in one or 
two suggestions which he makes. He quotes Eutychius, 
Ibn *Abd al Hakam, and Makin as concurring in fixing the 
duration of the siege of Alexandria at fourteen months ; 
and he accordingly dates the commencement of the siege 
about the end of August, 640. He also quotes Eutychius 
as stating that the siege of Babylon lasted seven months, 
which, as Babylon fell April 9, 641, would give early in 
September, 640, for the commencement of the siege of 
Babylon : so that the two fortified places would have been 
besieged practically together. Now on military grounds 
alone this is quite impossible. *Amr never had troops 
enough to invest the two fortresses at once. Nor is there 
any direct authority to warrant Mr. Brooks' deduction. 
On the contrary the authority is all against it. John him- 
self makes *Amr quit Babylon after the capture on April 9, 
641, and seize Nikiou a month later: and if we take 
Jumada I as the mean between Rabi' I, given by Al Kindi 
and Yakut, and Jumada II given by the writer cited in 
Makrizi, this exactly tallies with John's account. From 
Nikiou *Amr's army marched on northwards, and it is quite 
possible that they established a leaguer of Alexandria at 
the end of June or early in July, 641. This therefore, and 
not August or September, 640, must be the point from 
which the fourteen months' siege is to be counted, if the 
statement of Eutychius, Ibn *Abd al Hakam, and Makin 

^ Amelineau puts the return of Benjamin in 641 ( Vie du Patriarche 
Isaac, p. xiv), but this allows an exile of ten years only, instead of the 
thirteen agreed on by practically all the authorities. 



Appendix D 543 

is accepted. In other words, the period of fourteen months 
is to be reckoned backwards from the actual occupation of 
the city at the end of September, 64:z, and not from the 
date of the treaty in 641. 

This conclusion brings us into almost exact agreement 
with Tabari, who says that the siege lasted five months 
before the capitulation : and it would be just four-and-a-half 
months by Arab reckoning from July i to November 8. 
This coincidence seems to confirm both my dates, and at 
the same time it suggests an explanation of the widely 
different terms assigned by different writers for the duration 
of the siege. Obviously some authorities reckoned from 
the investment up to the treaty of surrender, others up to 
the actual evacuation of the city. Suyilti's statement which 
I have quoted above seems a confusion between Tabari and 
Eutychius, and is an obvious blunder. Al Yaktibi, Bala- 
dhurt, Ibn Khaldun, and other writers who give three 
months as the duration of the siege, clearly mean that 
three months elapsed before the treaty ; and if to this period 
we add the eleven months of the armistice, we again get 
fourteen months between the first appearance of the Arabs 
before the city and its occupation. Thus, although these 
several accounts somewhat differ, the discrepancies can be 
nearly reconciled and that in a striking manner. 

Similarly I must demur to Mr. Brooks' assertion that 
'the interval of eleven months' (i.e. the period of the 
armistice) 'was occupied by *Amr in an invasion of 
Pentapolis.' I admit that John's text, as it stands, lends 
colour to this view, because the short paragraph in which 
the invasion is mentioned is placed just before that re- 
counting the death of Cyrus. But there is a second account 
of Cyrus' death later ; and the disorder of the whole chapter 
is so obvious that the argument from order is by no means 
conclusive. Military reasons surely would have forbidden 
*Amr from undertaking a distant expedition before he was 
in possession of Alexandria, the only possible base for such 
an enterprise. Ibn al Athir here is decisive as to the date, 
which he puts in A. H. 32 : and however the other Arabic 



544 ^-^^ Arab Conquest of Egypt 

writers vary the date, they are agreed (see Eutychius and 
Yakut) that Barca was occupied a year subsequently to the 
capture of Alexandria. I put the expedition to Pentapolis 
accordingly in the winter following the evacuation of 
Alexandria. The Muslim year A. H. %% began on Nov. 30 
in 6413 ; and if the expedition started soon after the turn of 
the year, we have an easy explanation of the fact that the 
date varies between A. H. 1,1 and A. H. 1% in the Arab 
authorities. 

I have no doubt that 'Amr was fully occupied at Babylon, 
possibly in arranging for the complete subjugation or sub- 
mission of Upper Egypt, certainly in reopening the canal 
of Trajan. From Baladhuri we know that the year of 
famine in Arabia was A. H. %\ (begins Dec. 10, 641) : and 
Ibn al Athir says that in this year, i. e. probably August or 
September of 64;^, *Amr sent corn to Medina by the canal 
which he had dug out. The canal could only be cleaned 
out in winter at low Nile, and could only be navigated in 
summer at high Nile: in the winter of 640-1 *Amr was 
busy with the siege of Babylon ; so that the excavation 
must be assigned to the winter of 641 -iz, as Ibn al Athir 
implies. The same authority quite definitely states that 
the date of *Amr's invasion of Barca was A.H. 22, which ran 
from Nov. 30, 642, to Nov. 20, 643. 
I set out the dates, then, as follows : — 
(i) *Amr's army at Al *Arish . . . Dec. 12, 639. 
The day comes from Ibn *Abd al Hakam, but Bala- 
dhuri, Tabari, Yakut, and MakJn are in practical 
agreement about the date of the invasion. 

(2) Pelusium captured circa Jan. 20, 640. 

Eutychius, Yakut, &c. agree that the town was taken 

after a siege of one month. 

(3) *Amr's raid into the Fayum . . May, 640. 
John of Nikiou is the sole authority for this. 

(4) Arrival of Arab reinforcements . June 6, 640. 
This is on the authority of Severus, but doubtful. 

(5) Battle of Heliopolis July, 640 : 

followed by the occupation of the town of Misr. 



Appendix D 545 

(6) ^i^gQ of the fortress of Babylon 

begun Sept. 640. 

Ibn *Abd al Hakam and Eutychius 
agree on this. 

(7) Treaty made by Cyrus, the Mu- 

kaukas, but denounced and dis- 
owned by Heraclius .... Oct. 640. 

(8) Surrender of Babylon .... April 9, 641. 

The day comes from John of Nikiou. This date repre- 
sents the ' conquest of Egypt/ or rather ' conquest of Misr/ 
which the best authorities, according to Makrizi, put in 
A. H. 20. These authorities include Ibn Kutaibah, Euty- 
chius, Yakut, Abil '1 Mahasin, Ibn Kathir, Wakidi, Abu 
Ma*shar, &c., though they do not all agree in their inter- 
pretation of the phrase, some taking it to mean the fall of 
Babylon, others the fall of Alexandria. But Tabari gives 
the date for the fall of Babylon as Rabi' II, A. H. 20 (March 
20 to April 17, 641), and so is in complete harmony with 
John of Nikiou. 

(9) Nikiou captured May 13, 641. 

(10) Alexandria attacked End of June, 641. 

(11) Return of Cyrus Sept. 14, 641. 

(12) Capitulation of Alexandria . . Nov. 8^ 641. 

(13) Excavation of Trajan's canal . . Winter, 641-2. 

(14) Death of Cyrus March 21, 640. 

(15) Enthronement of Cyrus' successor July 14, 642. 

(16) Evacuation of Alexandria by the 

Romans Sept. 17, 642. 

(17) Expedition to Pentapolis . . . Winter, 642-3. 

(18) Return of Benjamin Autumn of 644. 

(19) Revolt of Manuel End of 645. 

(20) Recapture of Alexandria by the 

Arabs Summer, 646. 

Though this chronology comes in an appendix to my 
history, I was forced to work it out before writing the 
narrative, as the order of events obviously depended on 
the settlement of dates. It has been a very difficult 
problem or set of problems, and I have been obliged to 

BUTLER N n 



546 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

show the working in great detail, much as I regret the 
length of this essay. My table of dates differs in several 
material points from Mr. Brooks' list, but in closing the 
subject I cannot but again acknowledge the debt which 
students owe to his researches. 

APPENDIX E 

ON THE AGE OF *AMR IBN AL *ASt. 

There is some discrepancy among the Arab authorities 
on the subject of *Amr's age at the time of his death, 
though their agreement upon the date of that event is 
nearly unanimous. It may be taken for granted that he 
died on the Yiim al Fitr A. H. 43, corresponding to January 
6, 664. His age at that time is variously given as ninety, 
seventy-three, and seventy. I believe the last number to 
be correct, or at any rate ninety to be wrong. 

In the calculations which follow I assume that the Arab 
writers have reckoned by Arab years, and I therefore make 
a rough allowance for the difference in the length of the 
year on the two systems. 

The ninth-century Ibn Kutaibah in his account of *Amr 
(ed. Wustenfeld, pp. 145 seq.) says that he died at the age 
of Seventy-three in A. H. 4:^ or 43, though some say 51. 
He adds that his son *Abdallah died at the age of seventy- 
two in A. H. 6^^ and was only twelve years younger than 
his father. Now if this were true, 'Abdallah would have 
been born c. 615 A. D., and therefore *Amr about 603: 
consequently *Amr at his death in 664 would have been 
about sixty-three. Ibn Kutaibah therefore is quite in- 
consistent. 

Ibn Khallikan gives *Amr's age as ninety, following 
Wakidi. 

Ibn al Hajar quotes Yahya ibn Bakir as saying that 
*Amr lived to be ninety years old, and he adds that *Amr 
was seven years old when Omar was born. Suyuti agrees 
with this, saying that *Amr died at the age of ninety in 



Appendix E 547 

A. H. 43. Now Omar's death took place on 16 Dhil '1 
Hijjah, A. H. 23 = Nov. 3, 664, at the age of fifty- five. 
Omar therefore was born c. 590 A. D. ; and if *Amr were 
seven years old at that time, he was born c. 583 A. D. In 
other words 'Amr was not ninety but eighty when he died. 
There is, however, some discrepancy about Omar's age at 
death. Ibn Kutaibah (p. 91), while strongly affirming that 
fifty-five is the correct age, alleges that Wakidi on the 
authority of *Amir ibn Sa*d gives sixty-three. If the age 
of sixty-three be taken, Omar's birth would fall c. 68a and 
*Amr's c. 575 A. D. ; and 'Amr in 664 would be well over 
ninety by Arab reckoning. It follows also that at the time 
of the conquest he would be sixty-four or sixty- five by 
European reckoning. This seems very improbable. 

Nawawi, however, who affirms that the 'Id al Fitr of 
A. H. 43 is the right date for *Amr's death against all 
others which are assigned for it, also avers that *Amr's 
age at death was seventy (ed. Wiistenfeld, p. 478). This 
would place *Amr's birth about the year 595, and would 
make him consequently some forty-four years old at the 
time of the conquest. 

We have therefore to choose between the two statements 
that the commander of the Arab forces at the time of 
the invasion was forty-four and that he was sixty-four. 
A priori there cannot be much doubt on the subject. A 
fiery and impetuous character could scarcely have been 
predicated of a man so far beyond middle life, nor can 
*Amr be imagined to have played the part he did, both 
during the conquest and subsequently in Egypt and in 
Syria, at the more advanced age. If, for example, 'Amr 
was ninety at the end of 66^^^ he was about eighty-five at 
the battle of Siffin in 658 — a battle in which he is known 
to have shown the most amazing activity and personal 
prowess. This alone is something like a reductio ad 
ahsurdum of the statement. But it is extremely easy to 
see how it arose. For nothing is simpler than to mistake 
seventy for ninety in copying in the Arabic, and nothing is 
more natural than that ^jt?'^^ or seventy should have been 

N n 2 



548 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

corrupted into ^:s^ or ninety. And it is the later 
authorities who give the higher number. We may conclude 
then that ' Amr died at the age of seventy. 



APPENDIX F 

ON THE DATES OF THE COPTIC PATRIARCHS 

AFTER BENJAMIN IN THE SEVENTH 

CENTURY 

Questions connected with the conquest made it neces- 
sary at times to refer to the successors of Benjamin, and 
some importance attaches to their chronology. Not the 
least of such questions is the date at which John of Nikiou's 
history was written. The evidence as usual is indirect, but 
it turns mainly on the date of the Patriarch Isaac, at whose 
consecration John was present. Isaac was third in suc- 
cession from Benjamin, the two intervening Patriarchs being 
Agatho and John of Samanud : but as it seems possible 
to ascertain the date of Isaac's consecration exactly, it will 
be easier from that fixed point to work backwards for the 
others. 

The chief source of information is the Coptic ' Life of 
Isaac' which has been published with a translation by 
Amelineau {Histoire du Patriarche Copte Isaac). The 
writer in an interesting preface asserts that the Coptic 
document merely avers that Isaac died on 9 Athor (which 
is Nov. 5, not Nov. 6 as stated) : ' A cette date se bornent 
toutes les indications chronologiques, c'est-a-dire qu'elle ne 
nous apprend absolument rien.' But because Makin gives 
A. H. 69 as the year of his death, Amelineau concludes 
that Isaac died Nov. 6, 688. Von Gutschmid gives the 
date Nov. 5, 692. 

But Amelineau is wrong in saying that the Coptic docu- 
ment gives no other indication for the chronology. He 
has overlooked a very material statement. For on p. 50 
we read that Isaac was consecrated 'on 8 Khoiak, which 



Appendix F 549 

was a Sunday ' — the proper day for the ceremony. Now 
about this period the 8 Khoiak fell on a Sunday only in 
the years 684 and 690 : of these years 684 is quite impos- 
sible, consequently Isaac was consecrated on 8 Khoiak 
(or Dec. 4), 690. This then is the date at which John of 
Nikiou was present. Severus makes the term of Isaac's 
pontificate vary between two years nine months and three 
years in different MSS. ; but knowing that Isaac died on 
Nov. 5, if we now assign Nov. 5, 693, as the date of Isaac's 
death, we get a term of two years eleven months, which 
is the exact term assigned by Makrizi. 

It would be easy to follow Amelineau's preface, and to 
show how entirely he has mistaken the period at which 
Isaac was born, and which he places before the Arab 
conquest. Indeed he makes Isaac about eighteen at the 
time of the conquest (which he puts in 640), and dates his 
birth 622. To this conclusion he is largely led by the fact 
that Isaac as a boy was placed with a relative Meneson, 
who was nx*'P''"o^^P*o^ ^^ pe^Tq ni^ecop^ioc eqoi tiene^pxoc 
C'^X^P*^ «Te x«^^ or registrar to George, eparch of the 
land of Egypt. This title is distinctly curious, as showing 
how the forms of Byzantine government persisted after 
the conquest : but that they did so remain is not for 
a moment in doubt, inasmuch as in the same document 
reference is made to an official who is actually called 
nie.TuoTCTd.Xioc, or the Augusta! (p. 73), and that in direct 
connexion with the * king of the Saracens,' *Abd al *Aziz, 
who is mentioned by name a few pages earlier (pp. 43 and 
64). The occurrence of the title therefore is far from 
proving that Isaac's boyhood was spent under Byzantine 
rule. Indeed his flight into the desert at a time when he 
was hardly out of his boyhood is conclusively proved to 
have taken place after the conquest, because we find his 
parents directly afterwards consulting a Coptic Arch- 
bishop at Alexandria. This cannot have happened 
between the years 631 and 644, since there was no Coptic 
Archbishop in the city during that period : nor can it have 
been previous to 631, because soon after his flight Isaac 



550 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

is found talking to a country priest, of whom, the story says 
(p. \i\ ' many testify that he was a confessor, and had been 
set before the judgement-seat of Cyrus, and had received 
many stripes for the confession of the faith ' ^ ; and this 
language proves that the persecution of Cyrus, which lasted 
from 631 to 641, was over. It follows that the parents' 
appeal to the Archbishop must have been subsequent to 644, 
and consequently that the Archbishop was Benjamin. 

There is little or nothing to show in what decade this 
appeal took place, about 650 or 660 or 670. I incline to 
the first decade, because I attach weight to the conjtinual 
assertions of Isaac's youth — therein disagreeing with 
Amelineau, who for example sees no difficulty in inter- 
preting 'jeune gar9on' as a middle-aged man, although 
it is given in strict antithesis to * vieillard ' (pp. iJ5-6). If 
the period in question were about 6^"]^ Isaac was born 
about 640, and was about ^'3^ when he died. The Patriarch 
to whom he acted as secretary for a time was doubtless 
Agatho, though the only Patriarch mentioned by name 
is John of Samanud (p. 42), who nominated Isaac to the 
succession. I may further note that if Amelineau's 
chronology were right, i. e. if Isaac had been born in 622, 
then the ten years of the great persecution, i.e. 631 to 641, 
would coincide with Isaac's ninth to nineteenth year. But 
during the whole of this time, as I have said, there was no 
Coptic Archbishop at Alexandria, as the story demands : 
whereas if, as I contend, Isaac was born circa 640, and fled 
into the desert circa 6^"]^ then the story runs naturally; 
because Benjamin had been back in Alexandria for thirteen 
years at that date — during in fact the greater part of Isaac's 
boyhood. 

Having now fixed the date of Isaac's consecration and 
death, we know that his predecessor John of Samanud, 
after a reign of nine years, died on a certain i Khoiak, or 
Nov. 27. This would naturally be Nov. 27, 690 ; but we 

^ Amdlineau's translation, 'qu'on le fit monter sur le tribunal de 
Cyrus,' does not bring out the pluperfect form of the Coptic original, 
e«)>.TTe.goq, as Mr. Crum tells me. 



Appendix F 551 

should have to admit that Isaac was consecrated exactly 
a week after the death of his predecessor, whereas the 
Coptic Biography contains a long account of the dissensions 
which followed on the vacancy, and the efforts made to 
secure the election of one George, who claimed to have 
been rightfully nominated. The archdeacon, however, 
forbade the consecration of George, and subsequently on 
the arrival of a commission from the Saracen ruler, the 
bishops were summoned to lay the matter before him at 
Babylon. George's life failed to bear the necessary scrutiny : 
people flocked from all parts of the country to hear *Abd 
al *Aziz's decision : and when it was given at their wish 
in favour of Isaac, there were dances and rejoicings from 
Babylon to Alexandria (pp. 44-9). It is obvious that all 
this must have taken a long time : so that we are forced, 
while maintaining that Isaac was enthroned on 8 Khoiak, 
690, to throw back the death of John of Samantld to 
I Khoiak (or Nov. 27), 689. In other words, there was 
a year's vacancy. This inference is confirmed by the 
Chronicon Orientate, which asserts that John died on 
I Khoiak which was a Saturday. We have seen that 
in 690 8 Khoiak was Sunday ; therefore i Khoiak in 
that year was also Sunday : but i Khoiak fell on a 
Saturday, as required, in 689. 

Allowing now nine years to John's pontificate, we get 
back to 680 for its commencement. His predecessor 
Agatho died on Oct. 13, so that the term corresponds 
very closely. John died therefore on Oct. 13, 58o, after 
a period of ofifice which is given as nineteen years. But 
we have already seen that Benjamin died on 8 Tubah, or 
Jan. 3, 66'z ; and the interval amounts to eighteen years 
and something under ten months — a close approximation. 
The chronology thus dovetails with nicety. 

The table of chronology may now be set out. I have 
followed in the main the data given by Severus ; and these 
taken in conjunction with Isaac's Biography and other 
authorities seem to fit so well together as almost to preclude 
the chance of error. Von Gutschmid, while agreeing on the 



552 The Arab Conquest of Egypt 

dates for the death of Benjamin and the death of Agatho, 
differs in putting the death of John of Samanud on May %^ 
689 {Kleine Schrifien, ii. 500), for which there is not 
adequate authority: moreover, he puts the consecration 
of Isaac in Feb. 690, and his death Nov. 5, 69:^ — dates 
which are conclusively refuted by the Coptic Biography. 
The true dates seem to stand as follows : — 





Date of 


Term of 


Date of 


Patriarch. 


Consecration. 


office. 


death. 


Benjamin . . . 


Jan. 6%'>^ . 


39 years . 


Jan. 


3, 662. 


Agatho .... 


Jan. 66% . 


19 » • 


Oct. 


13, 680. 


John of Samandd 


Oct. 680 . 


9 » • 


Nov. 


27, 689. 




(One year's vacancy.) 






Isaac .... 


Dec. 4, 690 


3 » • 


Nov. 


5. 693. 


Simon .... 


Jan. 694 . 


7i „ . 


July 


18, 701. 


The dates for Simon, and the 


explanation of the delay 


in his appointment; may be found in Renaudot. 





INDEX 



'Abdallah, son of 'Amr, pp. 205, 
289, 323, 494. 

— ibn Sa'd, 459, 465-6, 472, 
488,489. 

Abraha al Ashram, 147. 

Abii Bakr, Caliph, 149, 203. 

Abii Maryam, 215, 513-4. 

AbMt, 223, 234. 

Abyssinia, 140, 141, 142 n. 2, 
147, 426, 431 n. 2. 

Acropolis of Alexandria: see 
Serapeum. 

Agatho, Coptic Patriarch, 190. 

'Ain Shams : see Heliopolis. 

Alabaster, 103. 

Alexandria, captured by Nicetas, 
15; assailed by Paul's fleet, 
19; by Bonosus, 23; suburbs 
destroyed, 30; resort of Syrian 
refugees, 69; captured by 
Persians, 72-7 ; commerce of, 
112; 121; evacuated by Per- 
sians, 171; reoccupied by 
Romans, 183; viewed by the 
Arabs, 291; Arab failure be- 
fore, 293 seq. ; capitulation, 
317 seq.; strength of, 336; 
armistice, 358 seq. ; evacuation 
by Romans,366-7; description, 
368-400 ; plans, 399 n, ; fate 
of the library, 401-26 ; re- 
covery of city by Romans, 467 
seq. ; recapture by the Arabs, 
474-5 ; treatment, 484-5; 
captives restored, 487 ; Mus- 
lims not allowed to settle there, 
487 ; decay of learning, 490 : 
see also App. D, passim. . 
'Amr ibn al 'Ast, given a com- 
mand, 144, 149; advances on 

Egypt, 194 seq. ; his age, 199, 



App. E; characteristics, 199- 
206 ; early visit to Alexandria, 
292 n.; sermon, 343 n., 434; 
description of Egypt, 433 ; his 
government, 445, 456-9 ; sup- 
pression of Manuel's revolt, 
469-80 ; refused leave to 
settle at Alexandria, 487 ; his 
just treatment of the Copts, 
488 ; supersession, 489 ; 
second governorship, 492 ; 
escapes assassination, 493 ; 
death and burial, 494-5. 
Anastasius, Coptic Patriarch, 47, 
51, 69, 498-502, 505. 

— Prefect of Alexandria, 222, 
230, 233, 303, 316. 

Andronicus, Coptic Patriarch, 
50, 52-3, 80-1, 89, 169-70, 

172, 499. 501, 505- 
Angelion, the : see Church. 
Antinoe (Ansina), 188, 318, 

490 n. 2. 
Antioch, 14, 162, 163 n. 2, 291, 

299. 
Anushirwan, 54, 56 n., 66. 
Apa Cyrus, 235 and n. 
Arabia, arts in, 147-8. 

— Christians in, 59 n. 2, 62, 
146-9. 

Arabia Felix : see Yaman. 

Arabic language, use of, 490 
and n. i. 

Arabs, 149-53 ; conquer Syria, 
154-67; invade Egypt, 194 
seq.; reinforced, 226 ; capture 
Babylon, 272 ; enter Alexan- 
dria, 367 ; conquer Pentapolis, 
427 seq. ; their government, 
447 seq. ; their art, 491. 

'Araj, Al, 250, 513. 



554 

Arcadia : see Fayiim. 
Arcadion, the, 385 n. 2. 
Arcadius, Archbishop of Cyprus, 

360. 
Architecture, 102, 344, 368- 

400. 
Archon, 451. 
Ardashir, king of Persia, 126 

n. I. 
Aretion, governor of Jerusalem, 

195, 215, 513. 
'Arish, Al, 195-7, 209. 
Aristotle, school of, 412 and n. 

2, 414 n. I. 
Armanusah, 216 n. 2. 
Armenian Church, 65, 136, 155, 

478 n. 
Armour, 121 n. 2, 131 n. i, 

145- 
Arsinoe (Fayiam), 504. 
Art, Arab, 491. 
— Graeco-Roman, 102-15. 
Artabun : see Aretion. 
Artillery, 19, 23, 113, 114, 243, 

293- 
Ashmiin-Tanah, 355. 
Astrology, loi. 
Astronomy, loi. 
Aswan : see Syene. 
Athanasius, Patriarch of Antioch, 

51, 69, 136, 137 n., 156, 354 

n. I. 
Athrib, 14, 18, 26-7, 183, 236, 

267, 280. 
Augustalis, 141 n. i, 451. 
Augustamnica, 141 n. i. 
Authorities : App. B, C, D, F, 

and notes passim. 

Babylon, fortress near Memphis, 
32, 43, 51 n. 2 ; taken by 
Persians, 71 ; Benjamin's visit, 
173, 207; confused with 'Ain 
Shams, 212 n., 231 n. i, 
245; 222, 237; description, 
238 seq. ; siege, 249 seq. ; 
scaled by Zubair, 270, 280, 
319; capitulates, 272 ; Treaty 
of Alexandria there signed, 



Index 



329; 346, 431. 471-2, 480, 

528, and App. D, passim. 
Bahirah, monk, 153. 
Bahnas^ in Fayfim, 223, 224. 
Bahrain, 80, 141. 
Bahram, 54. 
Balhib, 289, 329 n., 349, 486 

and n. 
Baralus, 350 and n., 355. 
Barbarity, Roman, 160 and n. 

2, 274. 
Barca, 12, 91, 177, 429, 430. 
Basil, bishop of Nikiou, 445. 

— of Tyre, 152. 
Beduins, 3, 213, 224. 
Benjamin, Coptic Patriarch, 92, 

169-79; family, 169; elected 
Patriarch, 172 ; reforms abuses, 
173; flight before Cyrus, 177 ; 
restoration to power by 'Amr, 
439-46; 455, 471, 476, 478- 
80 ; death, 493 ; chronology, 
501, 505; identity, 514-5- 

Berbers, 8, 11, 430, 494. 

Bilbais, 216, 280. 

Black troops, 23, 257. 

Bonakis, 5 seq. 

Bon6sus, Count of the East, 1 4 ; 
acts against Nicetas, 1 7 seq. ; 
death, 36. 

Bornu, 437 n. 2. 

Bruchion, quarter of Alexandria, 
371 and n. 2, 411. 

Bubastis, 214, 347. 

Bukalimun, 108, 353. 

Burial in churches, 478 n. 

Caesarea, 17, 194, 299. 

Cairo, xix, xx, 242 n., 243, 
246, 278 n.i, 342, 347 n. 

Canal, Cleopatra's or the Fresh- 
water, 19, 21, 76, 287, 288 n., 

293. 371- 

— Dragon, 14, 25, 293. 

— Pharaonic, 16 n. 

— Trajan's, 217 n., 227, 345-8, 

544. 
Capture by force or capitulation, 
question of, 272, 322-7, 433 



n. 2, 475, 486 n. i, 2 
n. I. 
Capture of Alexandria by Ni- 
cetas, 15 ; by Persians, 72 seq. ; 
by Arabs, 319-27. 

— of Babylon, 271-4. 

— of Jerusalem by Persians, 
60 ; by Arabs, 166. 

Carpets, use of, no and n., 125 
n. 2. 

Catapult : see Artillery. 

Catholicus = Patriarch, 513-4. 

Chaereum : see Kariiin. 

Chartularius, 451. 

Chosroes, king of Persia, 54 ; 
relations to Christians, 55 and 
n. 3, 66, 135 and n. ; his wife 
Mary, 61 ; holds a council of 
bishops, 64 seq.; 78, m; 
neglect of sea-power, 121; put 
to death, 125; his palace 
burned, 125; treatment of the 
cross, 132; reply to Moham- 
med's letter, 142-3 ; 498, 506. 

Christian Arabs, 151 and n., 
353 and n. 2. 

Christians, their conversion to 
Islam, 198, 362-4, 461-4. 

— their divisions, 150, 443, 
446. 

— their opinion of Islam, 152-3, 
347-8. 

— their relations to Persian 
rulers : see Chosroes. 

— of Syria welcome Arab rule, 
158 and n. 2, 159 ; denounce 
Manslar for aiding the Arabs, 
161 ; their religious freedom, 

497. 

Chronology, 61 n. 4, 89 n,, 127 
n., 134 n. 2, 139 n., 254 n. i, 
300 n. 2, 345 a, 359 n. 

— of Arab conquest, App. D, 
272 n. I, 273 n. I, 333, 356, 
441 n. I, 469 n. 2 and 3. 

— of Persian conquest, App. B. 

— of Patriarchs, App. F. 
Church of Angelion, Alexandria, 

52 and n., 385 and n. 2. 



Index 

487 



555 



Church of Arcadion, Alexandria, 
385 n. 2. 

— of St. Athanasius, Alexandria, 

15. 372. 

— of Caesarion, Alexandria, 
115, 3ii> 314, 372-6, 411, 

413- 

— of SS. Cosmas and Damian, 
Alexandria, 47, 385. 

— of St. Euphemia, Alexandria, 

73 n. 

— of St. Faustus, Alexandria, 

389. 

— of St. John the Baptist, Alex- 
andria, 385, 477. 

— of St. Mark, Alexandria, 23, 
115, 170, 291, 372, 449, 475. 

— of St. Mary Dorothea, Alex- 
andria, 372. 

— of St. Michael, Alexandria, 

47. 

— of St. Sophia, Alexandria, 

389- 

— of St. Theodore, Alexandria, 

15, 372. 

— of St. George at Babylon, 
238. 

— of Al Mu allakah at Babylon, 
51 n. 2, 241 and n., 247. 

— of Abd Sargah at Babylon, 
247 and n. 

— of SS. Apostles, Constanti- 
nople. 301. 

— of St. John, Constantinople, 

3- 

— of St. Sophia, Constantinople, 
I, 38, 96, 103, 1 1 7-8, 127-8, 
130, 144, 165, 497. 

— of St. Thomas, Constanti- 
nople, 38. 

— of St. Mina in the desert, 
177 n. 2. 

— of Constantine at Jerusalem, 
60, 496, 497. 

— of Holy Sepulchre at Jerusa- 
lem, 60. 

— of the Resurrection at Jeru- 
salem, 67, 132, 496. 

— at Sana', 147-8. 



556 



Index 



Cisterns, underground, 353, 370. 
Civil war in Egypt, 4-30, 285, 

310. 
Claudion, the, 385 n. 2. 
Cleopatra's Needles, 291, 314, 

372, 376-9. 
Coinage, Arab, 490 n. i. 
Companions of the Prophet, 

229 n. I. 
Constans, Emperor, 305, 359, 

467, 489. 
Constantine, general of militia, 

330- 

— son of Heraclius, 195, 302, 

303- 
Coptic language, xiv, 490. 

— names, 310 n. 

Copts, as artists and craftsmen, 
no. 

— their opinion of Islam, 192, 
347-8. 

— persecuted : see Persecution. 

— reject the Monothelite com- 
promise, 1 80-1. 

— their relations with the 
Persians, 76, 81-9. 

— their relations with the Arabs, 
211, 215, 252, 279, 285, 295 
n., 319. 347-8, 357. 361-4, 
436 and n. i, 442-3, 445, 
448-9, 471, 472, 474, 499- 
80, 485 n. 2, 492 n. I. 

Corn-trade, 35, 49, 50 and n. i 

and 2, 63, 78, 112. 
Cosmas Indicopleustes : see 

Indicopleustes. 

— leader of faction, 265. 
-~— the Student, 99. 

Cross, the Holy, App. A, 61, 
126-33, 144; 163 and n. 3, 
164-6, 314, 506. 

Ctesiphon, 125, 126 n. i. 

Cycle, Dionysian, 534-5. 

Cyrene, 9, 10, 12,- 91, 429. 

Cyriacus, Patriarch of Constan- 
tinople, 3. 

Cyrus, Al Mukaukas, bishop of 
Phasis, Patriarch of Alexandria, 
appointed, 136-7, 156, 174, 



175-6; union of offices, 179; 
synod of Alexandria, 180; his 
dealings with the Arabs, 
2 1 2-3 ; hurries to Babylon, 
217; commands at Babylon, 
250 ; parleys with Arabs, 255 
seq. ; surrender arranged, 261 ; 
recall by Heraclius, disgrace, 
and exile, 262-4 ; return to 
Constantinople, 303 ; restora- 
tion to office, 305 ; his policy, 
306-7, 334, 363 ; lands at 
Alexandria, 309, 312-4; his 
clandestine surrender of the 
city, 317-9; treaty, 320-1 ; 
return from Babylon, 330; 
disclosure of treaty, 330-2 ; 
pays tribute, 332 ; intercedes 
with 'Amr, 359 ; melancholy 
and death, 359-62 ; identity, 
App. C, App. D, 536-45. 
Cyrus, bishop of Nikiou, 189. 

Dafashir, 25, 190. 

Dair Abft 's Saifain, 217 n., 495. 

— Bablfln, 245. 

— Baramus, 444. 

— Bulus, 247 n. 2. 

— Kibrius, 51 n. 2, 75, 169. 

— Macarius, 440 n. 4, 444, 516. 

— Suriani, 95. 
Dalas, 234-5. 
Damanhur, 21, 287, 297. 
Damascus, in, 155, 161, 163 

n. 2, 168, 291. 
Damietta, 269, 298, 350, 353, 

355 and n. 2. 
Damirah, 355. 
Damsts, 297. 
Dastagerd, 125, 174. 
Dibi, 289 n. 
Dimkaruni, 21. 
Diocletian, 294, 422. 
Diocletian's Column, 291, 373, 

380, 385, 386, 388. 
Dionysius, Patriarch of Antioch, 

354 n. I. 
Domentianus, 190, 222, 234, 

269, 283, 305, 311-2. 



Index 



Dove, story of, 281. 
Dushera, 429 n. 4. 
Dux, 440, 449, 451- 

Ecthesis of Heraclius, 182. 

Edessa, 57, 130, 135 n. i, 155, 
156 n., 160, 291. 

Egypt, invaded by Persians c. 
500 A. D., 72 n. 2; invaded 
under Chosroes, 71 seq. ; re- 
covered by Heraclius, 171; 
governed by Cyrus, 175 seq. ; 
invaded by Arabs, 194 seq.; 
'Amr's description of, 433. 

Emesa, 130, 155. 

Ennaton, monastery, 51 and n. 

2, 74, 4995 500-4. 
Eparchus, 451. 

Era, Mohammedan, 127 n. 1,138. 
— Seleucid, 499. 
Euangelion, the, 444 n. 2. 
Eudocia, 120, 264. 
Eudocianus, 190, 274, 275. 
Exaltation of the Cross, 130 seq., 

163 n. 2, 314, 366. 
Ezbekiah, 217 n. 

Factions, 16, 19, 24, 33, 39, 

265, 311. 
Faience, 107. 
Fakiis (Phacusa), 197 n. i, 

347-^ 

Farama, Al : see Pelusium. 
Fast of Heraclius, 134. 
Fayum, 183, 186, 189, 211, 
218-25, 227 n. I, 234, 249, 

265, 319) 351- 

Flags, 131 n. I, 278 n. i. 

Forced labour, 347. 

Fustat, xiii, xxi, 197 n. i, 270 
n. 3, 278 n. i; building of, 
339 seq. ; name, 340 and n. ; 
344, 472, 494, 495. 

Gaian, 29 n. 
Gaianites, 29 n., 190. 
Galen, tomb of, 210. 
Gardens in Alexandria, 370. 
Gate, of canal at Alexandria, 1 9. 



557 

Gate, the Golden, at Constanti- 
nople, 3, 35 n. 

— the Golden, at Jerusalem, 
131, 144. 

— the Iron, at Babylon, 241 
and n., 243-4, 249-50, 254, 
265. 

— the Moon, at Alexandria, 15, 
77, 369 and n. 5. 

— the Sun, at Alexandria, 22-3, 
369 and n. 5, 

— of the Tree, at Alexandria, 
380. 

George of Cappadocia, 419. 

— commander at Babylon, 251, 
254, 272. 

— governor of Alexandria, 140. 

— Melkite Patriarch, 53, 170 
and n. 2, 171-2, 311, 317 and 
n. I. 

— of Pisidia, 93, 123, 151, 405 
n. 3. 

— Prefect of Misr, 235. 

— son of Mina, or son of 
Karkab, A pp. C. 

Gibbon, iii, xvii, 4, 10, 27-8, 
40-1, 43 n., 91, 119 n., 123 
n. 2, 208 n. 2, 250 n. 2, 401, 405 
n. 3, 414, 425, 433, 468. 

Glass-making, 106-7, 376, 

378-9. 
Gong : see Nakus. 
Greek historians criticized, xvii, 

163 n. 3, 207 and n. 2, 3, 263 

n., 481-3. 506. 

— language, decay of, xiv, 490, 

527, 541. 
Greek fire, 11 3-4. 
Gregory, bishop of Kais, 185 

n. 2. 

Hadrianon at Alexandria, 385 

n. 2. 
Hajar al Lahun, 223. 
Hamra, Al, 278 n. i. 
Hariln ar Rashid, 344 n. 4. 
Hebdomon, j.he, 35. 
HeHopolis (On or 'Ain Shams),. 

114; confusion with Babylon, 



558 



Index 



212 n., 231 n. I ; 216, 220; 

battle of, 221 seq. ; 240, 279, 

346. 
Helpers of the Prophet, 229 n. i. 
Heraclius, Prefect of Africa, 4. 

— II : see Heraclonas. 

— the Great, rebels against 
Phocas, 4-9 and 34-41 ; 
crowned Emperor, 40 ; war 
with Persia, 116-29; triumph 
in Jerusalem, 130-3, 144-; 
orders massacre of Jews, 134; 
Church policy, 136-7, 154-9; 
comparison with Mohammed, 
138-9, 146; Mohammed's 
letter, 130, 140, 143; neglect 
of Muslim power, 154; perse- 
cution of Syrians, 158 ; escapes 
assassination, 160; farewell to 
Syria, 163; brings back the 
cross, 165; appoints Cyrus to 
Egypt, 136-7, 175-6; recalls 
Cyrus, 262; death, 269; 270 
n. I, 298-301, 505. 

Heraclonas, 302, 330. 
Hierapolis, 136, 137 n., 155. 
Hieroglyphics, use of, 86. 
Hijrah, 127 n., 138. 

— and Christian era, xxxiv. 
Hippodrome at Alexandria, 292 

n. I, 388-9. 
Honorius, Emperor, 385 n. 2. 
* — Pope of Rome, 181. 
Hospital in Alexandria, 63; in 

Persia, 55 n. 3. 
Hulwan, 173, 247 n. 2, 450. 
Humil, 473. 
Hypatia, 374. 

Ikhn^, 348-9, 485- 
Illumination : see Manuscripts. 
Independence, Coptic idea of, 

181. 
Indicopleustes, Cosmas, 102. 
Indiction, the, 534-5. 
Isaac, Coptic Patriarch, 184, 

447 n. 2, 449, 548-50. 
Islam, causes of its success, 139, 

150-3. 158-9; 192-3. 274. 



Islam, conversions to, 362-4, 

461-4. 
Ivory carving, 106. 

Jacobites : see Monophysites. 
Jacobus Barudaeus, 155. 
Jeremiah, tomb of, 371. 
Jerusalem, captured by Persians, 

59-60 ; surrendered to Arabs, 

166 ; 291, 299. 
Jews, hatred of Christians by, 

59 and n. 2, 130, 133-4. 

— lend aid to the Muslims, 160. 

— protected by Arabs, 320. 
Jizah, 431. 

John the Almoner, 48, 53, 62-3, 
67, 79 and n. 2, 96, 170 and 
n. 2, 504-5. 

— duke of Barcaina, 207 n. 3, 
222 n. I. 

— general of militia, 182, 
222-4, 314. 

— Prefect of Antinoe, 318. 

— governor of Damietta, 269, 

350. 356. 

— Moschus, 48 n. i, 96 seq., 
422. 

— of Nikiou, bishop, 96 ; state 
of his MS., viii-ix, 219, 227 n. 
1,532; 314 n. 2, 532 seq.; his 
impartiality, 313 n. i. 

— Philoponus, 93, 402-6. 

— of Samaniid, Coptic Patriarch, 
185 n. 2, 449, 550-1. 

Julius Caesar, 380, 389, 407-11. 
Justin, Emperor, 2. 
Justinian, i, 3, 10, 29 n., 50 
and notes. 

Ka'bah, the, 146, 149. 

KaiSj 185 n. 2. 

Kaisariah, 375 and n. 

Kaliub, 236, 251. 

Kariun, 22, 24, 287-9, 291, 

295. 297, 348- 

Karkab, origin of name, 523. 

Kasr al Paris : see Persians. 

Kasr ash Shama' {see also Baby- 
lon), 221 n., 245-6, 495. 



Index 



Khais, 289 and n., 350, 351 

n. I, 486 and n. 2. 
Khalid, the * Sword of God/ 

144, 145, 161, 162, 165, 459. 
Kharijah ibn Hudhafah, 230, 

233, 281, 345, 358, 363 n., 

472. 
Khorheam : see Shah-Waraz. 
Kubbat ad Dukhan, 246. 
Kulzum, Al, 346. 
Kiim Sharik, battle of, 287. 
Kfis, 179. 

Ladder, Zubair's, 270 and n. 3. 
Lake, Manzalah, 214, 351, 427. 

— Mareotis, 293. 

Lakhm, Arab tribe, 213 n. 2. 
Lawatah, Berber tribe, 430. 
Library, monastic, 74, 95. 

— at Alexandria, xvii, 99-101, 
104, 115, 373> 384, 401-26. 

— at Merv, xvi. 
Libya, province of, 10. 
Lighthouse : see Pharos. 
Leontius, general, 224. 

— Monachus, 405 n. 3. 

— of Neapolis, 48 n. i, 49 n., 
498 seq. 

— Prefect of Mareotis, 8. 
Luke of Aleppo, 152. 
Lustrci-ware, 108. 

Maks, Al, of Alexandria, 294 
n. I. 

— Al, of Cairo, 217 n., 529. 
Manuel, 208 n. 2, 263 n., 295 n., 

455 n. I, 468-75, 480 n., 

482 n. 
Manuf, reinforced by Phocas, 

14; declares against Phocas, 

16; taken by Bonosus, 18; 

surrenders to Nicetas, 26 ; 

captured by Arabs, 236, 249; 

strengthened, 267 ; 282. 
Manuscripts, corruption of 

patristic, 95. 

— illumination of, 98, 104-5. 
Marble, use of, 103-4, 147, 197, 

369, 386 n. 2, 387. 



559 

Mareotis, 9, 12, 25, 51 n. 2, 

177. 
Marinus, 264. 
Marmarica, 9-13. 
Martina, Empress, 162, 302, 

304 seq., 359. 
Massacre by Arabs, 223, 284. 

— by Heraclius, 134, 159. 

— by Persians, 60, 74, 78, 
84. 

Maurice, Emperor, 2, 54-7. 
Mausoleum of Alexander, 371. 
Medicine, study of, 92-3. 
Melkites, 29, 45, 47, 135, 179, 

251, 443; 446, 485 n. 2. 
Memphis, no, 221 and n., 260. 
Menas, bishop of Babylon, 173. 

— brother of Benjamin, 184. 

— chancellor of Nikiou, 18. 

— leader of faction, 265. 

— Prefect of Lower Egypt, 362. 

— Roman officer, 310-1, 314. 
Migdol, 214. 

Minaret, origin of, 398. 

Miphamomis, 21. 

Mirror on the Pharos, 393-6, 

397- 
Misr, city of, 212, 219 n., 221 

andn., 230 n. 2, 233, 235^1, 

251, 280, 341, 531. 
Mithra, cult of, 91 n. 2, 244 

n. 5. 
Modestus, Patriarch of Jerusa- 
lem, 63, 64, 132, 134-5, 136, 

157. 

Mohammed, alleged prophecy, 
62 ; his career, 138-53 ; death, 
146; his talk with 'Amr, 201- 
2 ; his injunctions regarding 
the Copts, 436. 

Momemphis, 21. 

Monastery, St. Anthony, 68 
and n, i ; Matra, 190; Alex- 
andrian, 73 {see also Ennaton, 
Dair Kibrius, Tabennesi) ; 
Edessa, 155; Wadt 'n Na- 
trun, 178 and n. 2, 282; 
Kfis, 179; Nahiya, 516; Nak- 
han, 187 n.; the White, 189; 



560 

Kalamun, 185 and n. 2 ; in- 
fluence of, 491. 

Monophysites, 29, 45, 47, 135, 
137 n., 155, 158 and n. 2, 181. 

Monothelitism, 156 and n., 157, 
179, 181, 182 n. 2, 303 n. 3. 

Mosaics, 103, 147. 

Mosque of 'Amr, 242, 343-4, 
434- 

— of Mercy at Alexandria, 475. 

— of Tiilun, 243. 
Mu'awiah, Caliph, 203-5, 467, 

493- 

— ibn Hudaij, 328-9. 

Muftt, the Grand, xxiii, 335 n., 
398 n. I, 478 n. 

Mukaukas, Al {see also Cyrus), 
his identity, App. C, 141 n., 
216 n. 2, 250 and n. 2, 254 
n. I, 259 n., 272 n, 317 n. i, 
345, 355, 455 n. i, 475-9, 
480 n. 

Muna, Al, 177, 444. 

Musailama, 147. 

Museum at Alexandria, 379, 
406-7, 411. 

Muta, battle at, 144, 151. 

Nakus, 343 n. 4, 448. 

Narses, 57. 

Nestorians, 135, 136, 158 n. 2, 
478 n. 

Nicetas, 4 ; advances on Egypt, 
8 ; struggle with Bonosus, 1 7- 
27; made governor of Alex- 
andria, 42, 43 n., 46-8; flight 
from Alexandria, 79, 496, 505. 

Nikiou, town in Delta, 15; its 
site, 16 n. ; taken by Bonosus, 
18; recovered by Nicetas, 25- 
27 ; taken by Persians, 71 and 
n. 3 ; Persian massacre, 83-4 ; 
reoccupied by Romans, 183; 
222, 234, 236, 268 n.; com- 
manded by Domentianus, 269 ; 
taken by the Arabs, 281-5, 
286, 288; Roman army under 
Manuel defeated, 472-4. 

Kilometer, 243, 247. 



Index 

Nubians, 3, 325, 338, 432. 



Obelisk, 228, 372, 373 n. i, 

376-9- 
Oflicials, Roman, adopt Islam, 
362-3, 450. 

— retain Roman titles, 450-1. 
Omar, Caliph, 166, 194-6, 200, 

205, 273 n. I, 320 n., 328-^9, 
341, 345 and n., 349, 402, 

403, 455-9, 465, 467, 469 n- 3> 
Omar ibn 'Abd al 'Aztz, Caliph, 

461-2. 
On : see Heliopolis. 
Opus Alexandrinum, 104. 
Othman, Caliph, 432, 459, 465- 

6, 469 n. 3, 485 n. I, 487 and 

n. I. 

Papyrus, 106, 404 n. i. 
Paul of Telia, 69, 94, 499-501. 
Pelusium (Farama), 15, 43, 71, 
183, 195 n. 3, 197 n. I, 210- 

3, 2i4n. I, 280, 354 n. 1,528. 
Pentapolis, 4, 10, 49, 117, 308, 

427-38, 494, 543- 
Persecution of the Copts by 
Cyrus, 183-93, 232, 252, 273- 

4, ^^2, 317, 446. 

— of the Jews by Heraclius, 134, 
159, 160 n. 4. 

— of the Syrian Christians by 
Heraclius, 158. 

Persian conquest of Syria, 54 seq. 

— invasion of Egypt, temp. 
Anastasius, 30. 

— do. temp. Heraclius, 69 seq., 
115; evacuation, 171, 174; 
chronology, App. B. 

— relations with Copts, 76, 
81-9. 

— rule, 91, 142 n. 2. 

— toleration of Christianity, 64- 
66 n. 2, 81, 158 n. 2, 183. 

Persians, Fort of the, or Kasr al 
Faris, at Alexandria, 90 and n., 
294. 

Peter of Bahrain, 80. 

— the Copt, 460. 



1 



Index 



561 



Peter, Melkite Patriarch, 364. 

Phacusa : see Fakiis. 

Pharos, the, 15, 292, 376-7, 
389-98. 

Phiale, canal harbour of Alex- 
andria, 50 n. 2, 400. 

Philagrius, 302, 304, 307, 359. 

Philiades, Prefect of Fayfim, 

311- 

Philoponus : see John. 
Philoxenus, Prefect of Fayfim, 

363- 

Phocas, Emperor, 2 ; puts Nar- 
ses to death, 57 ; warned of 
danger, 13; dispatches Bono- 
sus, 1 4 ; alarmed by Heraclius' 
fleet, 35 ; sinks the imperial 
treasure, 37 ; trial and death, 
38-40. 

Pisentios, bishop of Coptos, 
84 seq. 

Plague, I, 267, 435. 

Pompey's Pillar, 380 n. 2 : see 
also Diocletian's Column. 

Porphyry, 103, 106. 

Praetorium, 451. 

Pshati : see Nikiou. 

Pyrrhus, Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople, 302 and n. 3, 359. 

Rafah, 195. 

Rakoti, 380, 393. 

Raudah,. isle of, 222, 242, 250, 
254 and n. i, 255 and n. i, 
257, 265, 276 n. I, 431. 

Religion and politics, 44-5, 73, 
150, 158, 181, 263, 268-9, 

274, 319. 438, 446. 
Renegades, 152, 267-9, 278, 

295 n., 362-3, 443. 
Revenue of Egypt, 321, 452- 

60. 
Rhinocolura, 67 and n. 3, 71 : 

see also 'Arish. 
Rhodes, 172, 303 n. 2, 305 n. i, 

307-8. 
Rood, the Holy : see Cross. 
Rosetta, 289 n., 344, 349, 350 

and n. i, 485. 



Sabrah, 430. 

Sakha, 289 and n., 297, 486 

and n. 2. 
Saladin, xviii, 355, 388. 
Salahiah, 214. 
Samanud, 16, 267. 
Samuel, Abbot of Kalamiin, 91 

n. 2, 185 and n. ?. 
Sandiun, 289 n. 
Sanutius, Dux, 440, 449. 

— Prefect of the Rif, 362. 
Saracens, 150-1, 213 n. 2 : see 

also Arabs. 
Sarbar, Sarbaros: see Shah- 

Waraz. 
Sculpture, 100 n., 105-6, 178, 

383- 
Sea-power, 12 1-2, 336, 348, 

467, 489. 
Sebennytus : see Samaniid. 
Serapeum, the, 291, 373, 380- 

8, 410-1, 413 seq. 
Sergius, Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople, 93, 117, 122, 136, 157, 

302. 
Sermon, 266, 314-5? 434-6. 
Severus, Patriarch of Antioch, 

52 n. 2. 
Shabshir, -16 n. 
Shahin, 59 n. 2, 70 and n., 75, 

77, 118 n., 174. 
Shah-Waraz, Persian general 

and king, 59 and n. i, 70 and 

n., 118 n., 120, 126 n., 143 n., 

498, 506. 
Shaniidah, Anba, 87-9. 
Sharik, 286-7. 
Shata, 350 n. 2, 355-6. 
Ships,(i)trading,35,49-5o,ii2. 

— (2) war, 1 1 2-3, 366 n. 3. 

— 'Amr's description of, 467. 
Siege of Alexandria, 293, 475, 

542-3- 

— of Babylon, 249 seq. 

— of Bilbais, 216. 

— of Jerusalem, 165-7. 

— of Pelusium, 211. 

Silk, use of, 86, 108 n., 109 n., 
119, 125 n. 2, 131 n. I, 369. 



o 



562 



Index 



Simeon Stylites, 151 n. i. 

Simon, Coptic Patriarch, 74. 

Siroes, king of Persia, 143 n., 
505, 506. 

Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusa- 
lem, 48 n. I, 60 n. 3, 96 seq., 
136 n., 157-8, 165-7, 180, 
182 n. 2, 422. 

Sostratus of Cnidus, 389, 398. 

Statues, 4, 17, 106, 178, 377, 

379^ 383. 417,419- 
Stephen of Alexandria, 102. 
Sudan, the, 432. 
Suntais (Sultais), 287, 351 n. i, 

486 and n. 2. 
Syene (Aswan), 43, 208 n. i, 

432. 
Syria, Christians in, 156, 158. 
Syriac language, 93, 94. 

Tabennesi, 313 n. 2 ; convent 

of, 313-4- 
Tabiik, Mohammed's failure at, 

145- 
Talama, 349, 485-6. 
Tamiatis, 355 n. 2 : see also 

Damietta. 
Tanis, 214, 354 n. i. 
Tarranah, 177, 283. 
Taxes, land-tax, 321-6, 338, 

363, 451-6. 

— poll-tax, 272, 321-6, 332-3, 
338, 349 and n. 2, 429, 448, 
451-6, 486, 487. 

Tendunias : see Umm Diinain. 
Terenouti : see Tarranah. 
Terms granted by Arabs, 256, 
258-9, 261, 276, 321-7, 

443- 
Tetrapylus, 371-2. 
Textiles, 108 seq., 352. 
Theodore, bishop of Nikiou, 15, 

17. 

— nephew of Heraclius, 160. 

— Roman commander-in-chief 
in Egypt, 217, 224-5, 233, 
250, 267-9, 283, 286, 290, 
303. 3o7-9> 310, 311, 314, 
33O; 365. 



Theodore, Patriarch of Alex- 
andria, 13. 

— Prefect of Alexandria, 13. 
Theodosians, 30 n., 191. 
Theodosius, Emperor, 413. 

— Coptic Patriarch, 29 n. 

— Prefect of Fayum, 222, 225, 
23O; 233. 

Theonas, Abbot, 169. 

Theophilus, Patriarch of Alex- 
andria, 413. 

Thessalonica, 5, 33-4. 

Thomas of Harkel, 69, 94, 499- 
502. 

Tiberius, Emperor 578 a. d., 2. 

Timber, use of, 408 and n. 2. 

Timothy Aelurus, Patriarch of 
Alexandria, 375. 

Tinnts, 350 n. 2, 351-4. 

Toleration of Christianity by 
Persians : see Persian ; by 
Arabs, 152, 158, 259, 497. 

Tome of Leo, 182, 188 n. 2. 

Trajan, Emperor, 243-4: see also 
Trajan's Canal. 

Treasure, 37, 78, 117, 122, 125, 
148, 165, 272, 320. 

Treaty of Alexandria, 259 n., 
320-7, 329, 338 n. 2, 345 n., 
348, 349 and n. 2, 471, 482 n., 
540-1. 

— Babylon, 259 n., 261, 264, 
272 and n., 275-6, 320, 482 n. 

— local, 351 n. I, 486 n. i. 
Tribute, alleged payment by 

Cyrus before invasion, 207-9 
and notes, 258, 263 and n., 332, 
480-3. 

— see Taxes, poll-tax. 
Tripolis, 8,, 429-30. 
Tukh, 297 and n. 2. 

Tulun, Ahmad ibn. Caliph, 396. 

'Ubadah ibn as §amit, 257, 266, 

343- 
Umm Diinain (Tendunias), 216, 

217 and n., 225, 227, 230 and 

n. 2, 233. 

Union of Christendom, Hera- 



I 



Index 



563 



clius' schemes for, 136-7, 155- 

6, 175, 179, 192-3. 
Union of Coptic and Syrian 

Churches, 52 and n. i, 70, 

500-2, 505. 
Uranius, 55 n. 3. 

Valentine, 302, 304 seq., 359. 
Vellum, use of, 104, 105, 404 

n. I. 
Vessels, precious : see Treasure. 
Victor, bishop of Fayfim, 189. 
Virgin sacrifice, story of, 437-8. 

Wadi 'n Natriin, glass-works at, 
107; monasteries, 178; 440, 
444. 

— Tumilat, 214, 346. 



Walid, Al, Caliph, 395. 
Wall of the Old Woman, 198. 
War-cry of Muslims, 271, 430. 
Wardan, 'Amr's freedman, 280 
n- 2, 326, 335 n. 

Yamamah, 140, 141. 
Yaman, 141, 142 n. 2, 146. 
Yaztd ibn Abfi Sufian, 149. 
Yermouk, battle of, 161, 163 
n. 2, 164, 202. 

Zacharias, Patriarch of Jerusa- 
lem, 46 n. I, 61, 64, 129, 131, 
134 and n. 2. 

Zagazig, 214 n. 2. 

Zubair, Al, ibn al 'Awwam, 226, 
227, 266, 270-2, 326, 339, 343. 



THE END 



OXFORD 

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 

BY HORACE HART, M.A. 

PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 





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